The loss-allocation grid it would have written into the statute

The most useful part of the bill, and the part boards most often get wrong today, was a set of rules allocating a deductible across the parties depending on what was damaged. In outline, as the bill framed it:

• a covered loss solely to the common elements — the deductible is the association's;
• a covered loss solely to one unit, with a single deductible — the owner of that unit carries it;
• a covered loss to more than one unit, or to units and the common elements together — the deductible is shared in the same proportion as the damage among the affected units and the common elements, with the unit share falling on the respective owners and the common-element share a common expense.

The House version, H 7852, went further in one respect worth noting: it would have amended § 34-36-29, the insurance section of the older Condominium Ownership Act, so its title was “Property — Condominium Ownership”. That is the chapter governing Rhode Island's pre-1982 condominiums. Both bills also proposed adding further subsections of § 34-36.1-3.13 to the list in § 34-36.1-1.02(a)(2) that reaches those older buildings.

Both bills would additionally have given a unit owner a right to the paperwork after a loss: on written request, a copy of the insurer's damage appraisal, and — where coverage was denied or the loss valued below the deductible — “a copy of the letter detailing the determination.”

What the law actually says while the bill is dead

The 2025 acts are in force and they are what a board and an owner have to work with. P.L. 2025, chs. 177 and 178 added § 34-36.1-3.13(k): where the association insures the units, owners must maintain “[i]nsurance for any amount of loss covered by the association property insurance policy but not payable under the association property insurance policy because of the application of the deductible”, and “[t]here shall be no obligation on an association to apply common expenses related to a unit after a unit loss if the unit owner fails to comply with this section.”²

So the duty exists. What does not exist in the statute is the allocation grid for a mixed loss, and that is exactly the situation a burst pipe or a wind event produces. Our Rhode Island insurance requirements page covers what the association must carry.

Two standing provisions fill part of the gap. Section 34-36.1-3.13(a)(1) requires insurance of “not less than eighty percent (80%) of the actual cash value of the insured property at the time the insurance is purchased and at each renewal date”. And § 34-36.1-3.13(e) already gives the board substantial control over proceeds: a covered loss “must be adjusted with the association”, proceeds are payable to an insurance trustee or the association “and not to any mortgagee or beneficiary under a deed of trust”, held in trust, and “disbursed first for the repair or restoration of the damaged property”, with owners and lienholders entitled to nothing until there is a surplus.

Why the gap is closing anyway, from a different direction

Freddie Mac's Bulletin 2026-C, issued March 18, 2026 in alignment with Fannie Mae, now caps a per-unit master-policy deductible at $50,000 for mortgages with application received dates on or after July 1, 2026, and requires the lender to document an HO-6 unit owner's policy wherever the master policy includes a per-unit deductible or does not cover the unit interior.

So the bare-walls structure the bill would have regulated is being regulated — by underwriting rather than by statute, and with a dollar ceiling Rhode Island law does not impose. Note also what Rhode Island regulation does not do: the 5% hurricane-deductible ceiling in 230-RICR-20-05-13 applies to “residential property insurance policies insuring dwelling houses” and “is not applicable to commercial insurance policies”, which is what a master policy is.

What a board can do without the statute

Write the allocation into the declaration or a resolution. The dead bill is a serviceable template and nothing prevents an association adopting its logic by its own documents. The mortgagee-consent obstacle to amending a declaration was removed in June 2025.

Send the deductible notice and keep proof. The statutory duty exists now, even though its timing language is peculiar — notice “at least thirty days after” the carrier tells the association, plus a statement of the owner's duty to notify their mortgagee.

Tell owners the number and the limit to buy. A deductible-gap endorsement is cheap and specific. An owner who does not have it is exposed by statute after a loss and by underwriting at refinance.

Do not assume a “bare walls” master policy is simpler. It moves cost and argument to the unit boundary, and Rhode Island has no statutory definition of where that boundary sits for insurance purposes beyond what the declaration says.

What to watch next

Whether it returns in January 2027 with its 37-0 Senate record. Three condominium bills cleared the Rhode Island Senate unanimously in 2026 and none of the three was scheduled in House Corporations; the official record shows referral and then nothing, and no document explains it. The sixteen-member condominium law commission reporting by December 31, 2027 has an insurance-industry underwriter among its sixteen seats, which is the clearest signal that deductible allocation will be in its report.