header photo

Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Mexican Condo Insurance Analysis

One of the contingencies for our condo purchase was making sure that it has sufficient insurance coverage.  Condo insurance consists of three parts:

1.            The exterior structure of the building & common grounds

2.            The interior of the units (flooring, cabinets, bathroom fixtures, etc)

3.            The owner’s personal contents (furniture, clothing, artwork, etc)

What Melissa discovered through digging into the policies is that Item 1 was covered sufficiently under the HOA policy.  Item 3 is covered by the owner’s policy which we have control over as an owner.  However, item 2 – the unit interior fixtures became controversial.  The insurance agent who had written both the HOA policy and our seller’s owner policy claimed that item 2 was covered under the HOA policy.  Only it wasn’t.  Plain and simple, the insurance agent was misinformed or deceitful – no notion of which.  The policy just doesn’t make clear that the interior of the units were covered.

Melissa wrote a memo for the HOA outlining the issue.  We are hoping to get an invite to the HOA meeting to discuss fixing this as the policy is up for renewal Feb 28.  Fortunately, we can choose to cover #2 in our own owner policy and the financial implications are small $200/yr.  Problem is that if other owner’s don’t similarly insure this could be problematic.

Yeah, I know, Melissa and Dave are the only ones that actually read policies.  Most people (likely all the owners currently in residence) haven’t dug through it.

Fortunately, what we have heard is that the HOA is run by the owners choosing things they care about and running with them.  So we shall see how open they are to discussing.

Go Back

Comment