The market, in the words of the people placing the coverage

Leonor Vivona, Vice President at FS Insurance Brokers: “We're in a hard market – 20%-plus premium increases, fewer carriers offering coverage, and more rigorous underwriting.”

Sean Kent, Senior Vice President: “Anything that you can do to prevent or mitigate water damage claims is going to be really impactful.”

Shalamar Clarke, Insurance Manager: “Document everything. Take videos, photos, preserve receipts, and keep the damaged property until the adjuster arrives.”

And on why New York specifically is priced the way it is, Jillian Menna, General Counsel at Genatt Insurance Solutions, on the construction-liability regime: “Under the law, if there is an injury and the condo or co-op is sued, you are 100% responsible.” The reference is to Labor Law § 240, New York's scaffolding law, which imposes strict liability — and which is one reason a New York association doing facade work pays more than an identical building elsewhere.

The excess and umbrella layer is where the repricing is brutal

The figure that best illustrates it, from Habitat's June 2026 reporting: what used to buy $100 million of umbrella coverage for about $3,000 now buys $25 million for about $25,000.³

Renée A. McFadden of Distinguished: “Twenty years ago, we would sell an umbrella [policy] for pennies on the dollar. But more and more we're seeing claims that are piercing the umbrella...”

The cause attributed is rising jury awards and liability settlements, particularly trip-and-fall claims. The mitigation advised is concrete and within a board's control: clear outstanding DOB and HPD violations, install CCTV, maintain sidewalks, and get the risk transfer right in contractor agreements with proper additional-insured and hold-harmless provisions. Our New York insurance requirements page covers the coverage stack.

One New York board solved this through its governing documents

This is the most useful thing in the reporting, because it is a route that does not require deciding the unsettled question at all.

An Upper West Side condominium built in 2010 had three major water-damage claims in four years, the largest $60,000. It was pushed into the non-admitted market and its premium tripled from $50,000 to $130,000.⁴

The diagnosis was in the declaration rather than the plumbing. Sophie Bird found that the governing documents made the association responsible for repairing original unit floors — and because few owners had renovated, the building was absorbing nearly every water claim in the building.

The fix was a supermajority vote to amend the bylaws, shifting floor-repair responsibility to unit owners and their own HO-6 policies. First-year premium reduction: $15,000.

Bird: “We helped the board make the case that bringing down the number of claims would bring down premiums, which would result in significant savings over the years.”

Note what that board did and did not do. It did not decide who pays a deductible. It changed which losses are the association's at all — which is a question the declaration answers, which a board can amend by the ordinary route, and which does not require any new legal theory.

What New York law does say about who repairs what

The courts have been mapping this, and two 2026 decisions are worth a board's attention.

On limited common elements, the First Department held that where balconies “are defined in the governing documents as 'Residential Limited Common Element[s]' and are part of the broader common elements of the building,” the condominium owns them, so a defect claim is derivative rather than individual — and a unit owner “lacks standing to bring a claim alleging injury due to a common element.” It also drew the ordinary/extraordinary maintenance line the bylaws set up as the live factual question.⁵

On access to make a repair, the First Department granted summary judgment to a co-op declaring that under the proprietary lease a shareholder had to repair a shower-pan leak or grant access “at her own expense,” and held that “the determination as to the manner and extent of repairs is generally protected by the business judgment rule” — notwithstanding a city-agency inspection that found no leak.⁶

So: the declaration and proprietary lease decide whose repair it is, and the board's judgment about how to do it is protected. What neither decision addresses is the deductible.

Where a board stands while the question is open

Read the declaration before the renewal, not after the loss. The Upper West Side building's problem was a repair-responsibility clause nobody had connected to the loss run. Ask the broker which categories of loss are driving the claims, then ask counsel whether the governing documents make those the association's responsibility at all.

Do not adopt a deductible-shifting resolution without advice. It is not settled that a New York board can do it, the professionals advising boards disagree about whether it should, and a resolution that reallocates a cost the declaration assigns to the association is the kind of act that gets challenged. If a board wants owners to bear these losses, amending the document is the defensible route and a resolution is not.

Require and verify HO-6 coverage at the deductible level. This is the quiet piece that protects everyone. Fannie Mae now independently requires a unit owner's HO-6 policy to be at least equal to the master policy's per-unit deductible where one exists — so a board that is raising its deductible has both a reason and a lever to require matching owner coverage.

Our budget approval page covers the premium line, our reserve studies page covers why an absorbed deductible is a reserve problem, and our governing statute page covers the amendment route.

One note on sourcing. The coastal and residual-market angle — carriers withdrawing from coastal New York, rising demand at the New York Property Insurance Underwriting Association — is something we could not source properly. NYPIUA and the Coastal Markets Assistance Program are oriented to individual units and small dwellings, and we found nothing indicating NYPIUA writes association master policies. We are not going to imply otherwise.