Property
Buildings, common areas, and owned contents at replacement cost, with ordinance or law coverage sized for a real rebuild under current code.
Home/Industries/Real estate and habitational
Real estate and
habitational
insurance
Habitational is one of the hardest property classes in California right now. Wildfire, water damage frequency, and habitability litigation have pushed most of it into specialty markets.
Replacement cost, not market value
You insure what it costs to rebuild, not what the property would sell for. In California those two numbers have almost nothing to do with each other.
The program we build
The pieces, and what each one is actually for.
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Business income and rents
Lost rental income while units are uninhabitable, plus the extra expense of relocating tenants. The period of restoration is the number that matters.
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General liability
Premises claims, dog bites, pool and playground exposure, and habitability allegations. Watch for assault and battery and habitability exclusions.
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Directors and officers
For homeowner associations. Board decisions on assessments, architectural approvals, and enforcement generate more claims than the property itself.
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Professional liability
For property managers. Managing someone else's asset is a professional service, and your general liability excludes it.
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Equipment breakdown and water damage
Boilers, elevators, and HVAC, plus the water damage deductible structure that decides what a burst supply line actually costs you.
Read this part
Where habitational programs fail
Most of the trouble we find in this class is in valuation and in exclusions nobody read.
- Coinsurance penalties from a schedule of values that has not been updated against current construction costs.
- Water damage sublimits or per unit deductibles that turn a routine supply line failure into an uninsured loss.
- Habitability, mold, and bedbug exclusions on the liability form, which is where tenant litigation lives.
- Wildfire deductibles expressed as a percentage of the building value rather than a flat dollar amount.
- Tenant discrimination and wrongful eviction excluded from a policy the owner assumed covered both.
How we approach the schedule
Work the inputs before working the market.
Step 01
Rebuild the values
Cost per square foot benchmarked by construction type, county, and unit count rather than rolled forward with an inflation guard.
Step 02
Grade each location
Roof age, wiring, plumbing type, sprinklers, and brush clearance. Galvanized plumbing and aluminum wiring will decline an account on their own.
Step 03
Structure around the hard locations
Where one carrier will not take the whole schedule, we layer it or move the wildfire exposed buildings to a FAIR Plan and difference in conditions structure.
Step 04
Match the lender
Loan covenants dictate limits, deductibles, and mortgagee wording. We check those before binding so nothing gets kicked back at funding.
Property we place
Apartment buildingsHomeowner associationsCondo associationsProperty managersSingle family rentalsMixed useStudent housingSenior housingMobile home parksCommercial landlordsRetail centersSelf storage
Not on the list is not the same as not placeable. Ask.
Questions we get
Straight answers.
Our HOA board is all volunteers. Do we need D&O?
Yes, and most CC&Rs require it. Boards get sued over assessments, architectural decisions, and selective enforcement. Volunteer status does not prevent the suit and it does not pay the defense.
Why did our apartment property premium double?
Some combination of wildfire reinsurance costs, construction inflation applied to your limits, and water damage loss frequency across the whole class. Two of those three are worth challenging with better data on your buildings.
What is a difference in conditions policy?
When wildfire exposure forces you onto the FAIR Plan, that policy covers fire and little else. A difference in conditions policy sits alongside it and restores liability, water damage, theft, and business income. Used together they approximate a normal package.
Next step
Send us the submission
Loss runs, current declarations, and five minutes of context. You will hear back the same business day with what we can do and which markets we are approaching.