2026-09-10 · Louisiana · Compliance

Where things stand. The insurance section of the Louisiana Condominium Act was not touched in either the 2025 or the 2026 Regular Session. Its credits line reads “Acts 1979, No. 682, §1; Acts 2019, No. 228, §1” — so the text a Louisiana condominium board is operating under is seven years old, and it was drafted before the current market existed.

The mandate

“A. Commencing not later than the time of the first conveyance of a unit to a person other than a declarant, the association shall maintain, to the extent reasonably available:
(1) Property insurance on the common elements and units, exclusive of improvements and betterments installed in units by unit owners, insuring against all risks of direct physical loss commonly insured against. The total amount of insurance after application of any deductibles shall be not less than eighty percent of the actual cash value of the insured property, exclusive of land, excavations, foundations, and other items normally excluded from property policies; and
(2) Comprehensive general liability insurance, including medical payments insurance, in an amount determined by the executive board but not less than any amount specified in the declaration, covering all occurrences commonly insured against for death, bodily injury, and property damage arising out of or in connection with the use, ownership, or maintenance of the common elements.”

Read the measuring words carefully, because two of them do most of the work. The floor is actual cash value, not replacement cost. And it is measured after application of any deductibles.¹

Why those two words matter now

A named-storm deductible of two to five percent of insured value — ordinary in the Louisiana market — eats directly into the figure the statute measures. A policy that satisfies the eighty-percent test on paper can leave an association substantially short of what it costs to rebuild, because eighty percent of depreciated value less a large deductible is not a rebuilding fund.

Nothing in Louisiana law caps a named-storm deductible on an association master policy, and nothing in Louisiana law tells an association how to split one among unit owners.

1. La. R.S. 9:1123.112 — Insurance (Louisiana Condominium Act), with amendment history ↩
2. Act No. 182, 2025 Regular Session (HB 345) — 60-day cancellation and nonrenewal notice ↩
3. Davidson v. Lake Marina Tower Condominium Ass’n, No. 2026-C-0483 (La. App. 4 Cir. July 21, 2026) — writ opinion ↩
4. Louisiana State Law Institute, Forty-Fourth Biennial Report to the Legislature (April 20, 2026) ↩