Nevada HOA Insurance Requirements

Section 1: Overview — How HOA insurance is regulated in Nevada

Nevada governs condominiums, cooperatives, and planned communities under a single UCIOA-based statute, the Nevada Uniform Common-Interest Ownership Act (NRS Chapter 116), which imposes a statutory insurance mandate on covered communities, with the recorded declaration remaining operationally central. The insurance mandate sits in NRS 116.3113, with companion provisions on policies and proceeds in NRS 116.31133 and on repair or replacement in NRS 116.31135.¹ Chapter 116 descends from the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, and its insurance section is the analog to UCIOA Section 3-113, but Nevada has modified the section substantially and did not adopt the 2008 UCIOA language allowing an association to charge a deductible to an owner who is the source of a loss. The chapter applies to communities created on or after January 1, 1992; certain provisions reach earlier communities, but the insurance section isn't among the provisions Chapter 116 forces onto pre-1992 communities, and the earlier Condominium Ownership statute (NRS Chapter 117) doesn't apply to common-interest communities, leaving older condominiums governed by their recorded declarations.⁵ The property-coverage obligation is keyed to building structure, so detached-home planned communities may differ from condominiums and attached structures.¹ Unlike the generic UCIOA model, Nevada statute expressly mandates crime (fidelity) insurance and directors-and-officers insurance, so those coverages aren't merely declaration-driven in Nevada.¹ Nevada sits alongside Alaska and Colorado as a UCIOA state, distinct from CC&R-primary states and from comprehensive prescriptive states such as California and Florida. The detailed sections that follow set out the framework, the allocation of coverage responsibility, and recent legislative activity.

Section 2: The statutory insurance framework

2A. The Chapter 116 insurance mandate

The core insurance mandate is NRS 116.3113, titled "Insurance: General requirements," verified against the current Nevada Revised Statutes.¹ It descends from UCIOA Section 3-113 but is heavily modified by Nevada. Commencing not later than the first conveyance of a unit to a person other than a declarant, the association must maintain, to the extent reasonably available and subject to reasonable deductibles, four categories of coverage. The mandate reaches condominiums, cooperatives, and planned communities created on or after January 1, 1992. The property-coverage obligation is keyed to building structure: property insurance covers the common elements and, in a planned community, property that must become common elements. Where a building contains units divided by horizontal boundaries or by vertical boundaries comprising common walls, the property insurance must also include the units, though not improvements and betterments installed by owners. For detached-home planned communities, the association's property obligation runs to the common elements rather than the detached dwellings, and owners insure their own homes.

The first required coverage is property insurance, valued at not less than 80 percent of the actual cash value of the insured property after application of deductibles, exclusive of land, excavations, foundations, and other items normally excluded from property policies. This is an actual-cash-value floor, not a replacement-cost standard, a point managers should confirm against secondary-market requirements that often demand full replacement cost. The second is commercial general liability insurance, including medical payments, in an amount determined by the executive board but not less than any amount specified in the declaration, with no fixed statutory dollar minimum. The "reasonably available" qualifier survives in the Nevada text, and if required coverage isn't reasonably available, the association must promptly notify all unit owners.¹

Nevada departs sharply from the generic UCIOA model on fidelity and D&O coverage. NRS 116.3113(1)(c) mandates crime insurance covering dishonest acts by board members, officers, employees, agents, directors, volunteers, and the community manager, and provides that "the minimum amount of the policy must be not less than an amount equal to 3 months of aggregate assessments on all units plus reserve funds or $5,000,000, whichever is less." NRS 116.3113(1)(d) mandates "directors and officers insurance that is a nonprofit organization errors and omissions policy in a minimum aggregate amount of not less than $1,000,000 naming the association as the owner and the named insured." These are statutory mandates in Nevada, not merely lender-driven or declaration-driven coverages; the common error of citing the Fannie Mae three-months-plus-reserves fidelity guideline as the source is misplaced in Nevada, because the standard is codified.¹

On proceeds and rebuilding, NRS 116.31133 provides that loss covered by the property policy is adjusted with the association, with proceeds payable to an insurance trustee or the association, held in trust, and disbursed first for repair or restoration.⁶ NRS 116.31135 requires the association to repair or replace any damaged or destroyed insured portion promptly, unless the community is terminated, repair would be illegal, or 80 percent of owners vote not to rebuild. The cost of repair or replacement in excess of insurance proceeds, deductibles, and reserves is a common expense.³

On deductibles, Nevada resolves the 2008-amendment question in the negative: the current NRS 116.3113 doesn't contain the 2008 UCIOA authority to charge a deductible to an owner who is the source of a loss. Instead, deductibles are treated as a common expense to the extent they exceed proceeds and reserves, and a separate provision, NRS 116.3115(6), allows the association to assess an expense exclusively against a unit when the damage or common expense is caused by the willful misconduct or gross negligence of that unit's owner, tenant, or invitee, even if the association maintains insurance with respect to that damage.²

2B. Applicability, retroactivity, and earlier communities

Chapter 116 applies to all common-interest communities created within Nevada, subject to stated exceptions, and its full management provisions apply to communities created on or after January 1, 1992. NRS 116.1201 lists the provisions that reach communities created before that date, and the insurance section isn't among the provisions Chapter 116 forces onto pre-1992 communities. NRS 116.1201 also states that the provisions of Chapter 117 and Chapter 278A don't apply to common-interest communities, so the older Condominium Ownership statute isn't a live alternative source of insurance obligations for a Chapter 116 community.⁵ For an older condominium not reached by the insurance section, the recorded declaration is the governing source of coverage obligations. The practical implication is that a manager taking over an older Nevada community must determine the creation date and read the recorded declaration before relying on any general "Nevada condo insurance" reference, because the statutory insurance floor may not apply by force of law to a pre-1992 community.

2C. The declaration, corporate law, and the federal and market overlay

Chapter 116 permits the declaration to require additional insurance and to set liability minimums, so the recorded declaration read against the Chapter 116 backstops is the practical rulebook for any given community.¹ Unlike most UCIOA states, Nevada makes fidelity and D&O coverage statutory rather than leaving them to the declaration or lenders, though the declaration may still add coverage. The Nevada nonprofit corporation law (NRS Chapter 82), under which most associations are incorporated, permits indemnification of directors and officers but doesn't itself mandate insurance; NRS 116.3102 separately authorizes the association to maintain D&O coverage and provide indemnification.⁷ The federal and secondary-market overlay applies independently: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, and the National Flood Insurance Program impose their own project-insurance conditions on associations whose units are financed conventionally or through FHA, and these frequently exceed the state-law floor, driving flood, replacement-cost, and fidelity adequacy decisions. These are lender or federal requirements, not Nevada statute. The Nevada market context shapes real coverage decisions: wildfire exposure in the wildland-urban interface around Reno, Carson City, and the Lake Tahoe basin; seismic risk, with earthquake loss typically excluded from standard property policies and purchased separately; and flash-flood exposure in desert washes that brings NFIP into play in Special Flood Hazard Areas. The Nevada Division of Insurance reported that homeowner insurance rates rose 21 percent between 2018 and 2023, and that in 2023 insurers declined renewal for 481 homeowner policies, an 82 percent increase over the prior year.⁸ These are market realities, not statutory HOA mandates.

Section 3: Coverage allocation and compliance obligations

A. Association coverage obligations

The master policy must carry property insurance on the common elements at not less than 80 percent of actual cash value after deductibles, exclusive of land, excavations, and foundations, and commercial general liability insurance including medical payments (NRS 116.3113(1)(a) and (b)). These obligations apply to covered communities under Chapter 116, to the extent reasonably available. The property obligation is keyed to building structure, so in condominiums and attached or common-wall buildings the units must be included, while in detached-home planned communities the association insures the common elements and owners insure their dwellings (NRS 116.3113(2)). The association must also carry statutory crime and D&O coverage (NRS 116.3113(1)(c) and (d)). These provisions are statutory and may not be waived except as Chapter 116 allows.¹

B. Coverage allocation between association and owners

The master policy doesn't extend to improvements and betterments installed by owners, and it doesn't prevent an owner from carrying separate coverage for the owner's own benefit (NRS 116.3113(2) and (4)). Owners therefore remain responsible for interior finishes, improvements and betterments, and personal property, typically through an individual HO-6 unit-owner policy.¹ Where the association's policy and an owner's policy cover the same risk, the association's policy is primary (NRS 116.31133(1)(d)). Loss-assessment coverage on the owner's policy addresses the owner's exposure to assessments for uninsured amounts. In detached-home planned communities the allocation shifts further toward the owner, who insures the dwelling itself.⁶ The most common reader error is assuming the master policy covers the unit interior or owner improvements; it doesn't.

C. Deductibles, proceeds, and repair-or-replace

By default, the cost of repair or replacement in excess of insurance proceeds, deductibles, and reserves is a common expense borne by all owners (NRS 116.31135). Nevada has no 2008 UCIOA provision charging the deductible to an owner who is the source of the loss, but NRS 116.3115(6) permits the association to assess an expense exclusively against a unit when the damage results from the willful misconduct or gross negligence of the owner, tenant, or invitee.² Proceeds are adjusted with the association, held in trust, and disbursed first for repair or restoration; owners and lienholders receive nothing until the property is fully repaired or the community is terminated (NRS 116.31133(2)). The association must rebuild promptly unless a statutory exception applies (NRS 116.31135(1)).³

D. Fidelity, D&O, and disclosure

Fidelity (crime) and D&O coverage are statutory mandates in Nevada, not merely declaration-driven or lender-driven, under NRS 116.3113(1)(c) and (1)(d).¹ Insurers must issue certificates or memoranda of insurance to the association and, on request, to any unit owner or holder of a security interest, and may not cancel or refuse to renew until 30 days after notice (NRS 116.31133(3)).⁶ Effective July 1, 2026, a resale package furnished to a purchaser must include proof of the insurance policies the association is required to carry under NRS 116.3113, added by AB396 (2025) as NRS 116.4109(1)(g).⁹

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

No published Nevada Supreme Court or Nevada Court of Appeals decision within the past 36 months squarely addresses an association's insurance obligations under NRS 116.3113, 116.31133, or 116.31135, including coverage allocation, deductible disputes, or proceeds and rebuild questions. Nevada's recent NRS 116 appellate activity has centered on the super-priority lien and HOA-foreclosure title disputes, which are collections matters outside the scope of this page. Civil insurance disputes between owners and associations proceed through the Nevada District Courts and are appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court, which may assign the appeal to the Nevada Court of Appeals under the 2014 deflection (push-down) model.¹¹

C. Active legislative debates

The most material recent pressure on association coverage is market-driven rather than statutory: AB376 (2025), signed by Governor Joe Lombardo in June 2025 and effective January 1, 2026, made Nevada the first state to explicitly permit property insurers to exclude wildfire coverage from standard homeowner policies or offer it as a separately priced product, structured as a four-year regulatory sandbox; a companion proposal to create a state Fair Access to Insurance Requirements (FAIR) plan (AB437, sponsored by Assemblymember Jill Dickman) died during the session, leaving Nevada without a residual-market wildfire backstop.¹²

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Nevada sits within three broad categories of association insurance regulation. First are UCIOA states that impose a statutory insurance mandate keyed to Section 3-113 and conditioned on reasonable availability, where Nevada joins Alaska and Colorado. Second are comprehensive non-UCIOA prescriptive states, notably California (Davis-Stirling) and Florida (Chapter 718, with structural-inspection and reserve requirements). Third are CC&R-primary and traditional-statute states such as Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi. Nevada's distinctive features are a heavily modified UCIOA that mandates crime and D&O coverage by statute rather than by lender guideline, a genuine HOA-facing Real Estate Division program — the Ombudsman and the Commission for Common-Interest Communities — that registers associations and licenses community association managers without regulating the coverage an association must buy, and a wildfire-and-seismic market.¹³ For a multi-state operator entering Nevada, obligations track the UCIOA Section 3-113 pattern, but the statutory fidelity and D&O mandates, the heavy Nevada modifications, community association manager licensing, and wildfire-and-seismic availability are Nevada-specific factors. Nevada hasn't moved to adopt the 2008 UCIOA owner-source-of-loss deductible language; its most recent insurance-touching amendment instead added a resale-disclosure requirement.

HOA Weekly updates its Nevada Insurance Requirements coverage quarterly as the Nevada Legislature and the Nevada Supreme Court act and as the property-insurance market shifts. Federal frameworks, including Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, the National Flood Insurance Program, and FHA fair-housing accommodation rules, also apply to Nevada associations regardless of the state framework, with fuller treatment to follow once that coverage is built out.

1. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.3113, "Insurance: General requirements," Chapter 116 (Common-Interest Ownership (Uniform Act)), Nevada Legislature ↩
2. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.3115(6), "Assessments for common expenses," Nevada Legislature ↩
3. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.31135, "Insurance: Repair or replacement of damaged or destroyed portion of community," Nevada Legislature ↩
4. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.31135(1) and § 116.3115, treatment of repair/replacement costs in excess of proceeds, deductibles, and reserves as a common expense, Nevada Legislature ↩
5. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.1201, "Applicability; regulations" (subsections listing provisions applicable to communities created before January 1, 1992, and providing that Chapters 117 and 278A do not apply to common-interest communities), Nevada Legislature ↩
6. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.31133, "Insurance: Policies; use of proceeds; certificates or memoranda of insurance," Nevada Legislature ↩
7. Nevada Revised Statutes § 116.3102, "Powers of unit-owners' association; limitations" (indemnification of officers and executive board and maintenance of directors and officers coverage), Nevada Legislature; see also NRS Chapter 82 (Nonprofit Corporations) ↩
8. Nevada Current, "Two bills seek to address growing issue of home insurance cancellations over wildfire risk" (April 9, 2025), reporting Nevada Division of Insurance data on rate increases and policy non-renewals ↩
9. Assembly Bill 396 (2025), Second Reprint, Section 9 amending NRS 116.4109 (adding paragraph (g), "Proof of the insurance policies that an association is required to carry pursuant to NRS 116.3113"), and Section 14 (effective July 1, 2026); enacted as Chapter 365, Statutes of Nevada 2025, Nevada Legislature ↩
10. Assembly Bill 324 (2025), proposing to amend NRS 116.3113 to make inclusion of vertical common-wall units optional; bill died April 12, 2025, Nevada Legislature ↩
11. Nevada Appellate Courts, "About the Court of Appeals" (describing the deflective/push-down model established by the November 2014 constitutional amendment), Nevada Judiciary ↩
12. The Nevada Independent, "Insurance carriers can now carve out wildfire coverage from Nevada homeowner policies" (AB376 signed by Gov. Lombardo, effective Jan. 1, 2026; companion FAIR-plan bill AB437 by Assm. Jill Dickman failed) ↩
13. Nevada Revised Statutes Chapter 116A, "Common-Interest Communities: Regulation of Community Managers and Other Personnel" (certificate required to act as a community manager; Real Estate Division and Commission for Common-Interest Communities and Condominium Hotels), Nevada Legislature ↩