I live in a townhome community in Southern California. Per my HOA’s CC&Rs, the HOA is required to insure and pay maintenance on the exteriors of the ~60 houses in the development (roofs, etc.). The entire development is tucked into a canyon green belt. Views are nice, but you can imagine that the fire risk isn’t too favorable.Cut to yesterday when I received a notice from our HOA that there has been an unprecedented increase in the insurance cost for the HOA. Last year’s premium for full replacement coverage was ~$20k. They forecast and budget for a 50% increase this year, to ~$30k. The actual lowest bid they received was ~$300k for full coverage. Call it a constructive insurance denial. The board unilaterally decided to go for only partial coverage (they haven’t provided specifics as of yet) and raise a special assessment of almost $2k from every homeowner. It’s a pretty royal shafting, and I don’t see how all of my community will raise the funds for that, but we shall see.Look, it does make sense. An insurance company needs to spread their risk around, and having an entire community at risk of going down in a single natural disaster is bad for business. But what are my options? Has anyone else dealt with this situation, and how did you manage it?One avenue I can see is petitioning to revise our CC&Rs to put the burden of exterior insurance on the individual owners. This may backfire though if companies start dropping individual policies. Another option is to sell and get the hell out. I really hate that option however, as I love my home…
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