Commercial property insurance protects the association’s physical assets from perils such as fire, severe weather, burst pipes, theft, and vandalism. Natural disasters like earthquakes and floods are not typically covered by commercial property insurance, unless those perils are added to the policy and must therefore be covered with additional policies or riders.

Commercial property insurance covers your building, everything in it and just outside of it, including:

• Computers
• Furniture and equipment
• Exterior signs
• Fence and landscaping
• Important documents
• Inventory
• Others’ property

A general liability insurance policy is type of insurance policy that protects insured commercial entities from a variety of liability risks, except for automobile and professional liability. It pays for various expenses, such as:

• Medical costs incurred if someone sustains an injury on company property
• Property damages or injuries that the owners or employees of the company cause
• Legal expenses, including the cost of the company’s legal defense, settlements, and awards if someone sues the company
• Damages, such as non-monetary losses suffered by the injured party, compensatory damage, and punitive damages
• Tenant-related liabilities, such as property damage if the company use rented property
• Expenses arising from claims pertaining to misleading or false advertisement, including slander, libel, and copyright infringement

Extending liability protection is critical to an association. Whether you live in a condominium or an HOA, liabilities exist everywhere and it’s easy for claims to quickly rack up millions of dollars in legal fees and damages. Under a normal Liability policy coverage is typically capped at a much lower payout limit than lawsuits often settle for leaving underinsured associations responsible for losses beyond their liability limits.

Excess liability or Umbrella coverage is designed to extend liability protection, as well as includes additional areas of protection that a traditional liability policy excludes.

D&O coverage is designed to protect the board of directors, officers, trustees, employees, volunteers and committee members, as well as Developers that hold board seats from claims arising out of civil lawsuits brought against the association or it’s members for damages arising from administrative actions taken by during operations.

D&O coverage offers a "Duty to Defend" clause which provides legal defense protections for the association and its members against the following acts:

• Fiduciary missteps
• Discrimination
• Wrongful termination
• Breach of contract

A package policy is an insurance product that bundles multiple coverages for more than one type of insurance. For example, liability and property insurance may both be included as a part of a package policy.

It’s common for smaller associations with limited financial resources or who have limited peril exposures, that are looking for a cost effective insurance policy to cover their commercial insurance needs to consider commercial package policies.

*Packaged policies may offer narrower terms or limit certain claims paying duties found in stand alone coverage. 

Cyber insurance is a policy that covers liability or loss for your association in the event private data about your association or property owners is compromised by cyberactivity during the course of the association operations.

This coverage can provide legal assistance if the association faces a lawsuit or required to offer compensation for financial losses from technological crime such as a breach of data.

Inland marine insurance is another broad class of insurance that spans well beyond the construction industry. While the name comes from an era when this class of insurance covered primarily ocean-bound materials and vessels, that is no longer the case. Inland marine coverage has evolved to cover many types of property, including property in transit, mobile equipment, property in the custody of a repairman or storage facility, property commonly used in different locations, and even computer equipment and digital information.

For the construction industry “inland marine insurance” applies primarily to the tools and equipment used by contractors and developers. For this reason, in construction industry, it’s commonly referred to as “tool and equipment insurance” or “contractor equipment insurance”.

These insurance policies cover many types of property used by construction professionals, contractors, and developers, including:

• Contractor’s tools, equipment, clothing, and supplies (hammers, drills, generators, electric saws, wood, drywall, etc.)
• Mobile equipment (excavators, forklifts, loaders, cranes, etc.)
• Leased or borrowed equipment (leased tools or mobile equipment like electric generators and forklifts)
• Computer equipment and data (laptops, tablets, private project data)

Policies will cover items either at replacement cost or at the fair market value of the damaged or stolen items, and covered incidents for this type of insurance would include:

• Equipment stolen from a jobsite
• Tools or equipment damaged in transport to a jobsite
• Equipment damaged in a fire or natural disaster at a jobsite

This class of insurance can also cover other costs that might be associated with the loss or damage of contractor tools and equipment, including:

• Debris removal / pollution cleanup following a covered incident
• Costs caused by delays resulting from a covered incident