Statement by Anchor Pointe Insurance Task Force in response to Condominium Home Owners Association report "Facing the Insurance Renewal Crisis" - June 17, 2020
We are pleased to see a formal report with recommendations from the condominium home owners association directed to the provincial government.
The opening paragraph, "the landscape of strata corporation insurance renewals dramatically changed resulting in unpredictable increases in the cost of insurance, the increase in deductible rates to manage risk and defer the majority of claims to individual owners and in significant circumstances, the loss of insurance or loss limits that limit the coverage available to both strata corporations and home owners."
highlights some of the significant conclusions from strata owners through our petition.
The detrimental impact of this current state cannot be emphasized enough. It has current and future negative implications to housing affordability and sustainability.
Many changes to the provincial legislation are aligned with our summary. However, we have proposed additional changes to legislation at both the provincial and federal levels.
We also want to highlight the current state of the global insurance market's impact on strata insurance in many other cities which also reflects the information we received through our petition.
The factors around high property values and construction costs in BC would require additional government and industry solutions to counter these barriers to insurance. These factors translate to high property taxes needed to support government infrastructure in communities.
Recommendations around better management and maintenance of the building by strata corporations is significant, but only for a portion of poorly run strata corporations. This is reflected in CHOA's survey results. Those changes would not make a difference to the many well managed buildings that have already seen significant increases to premiums and deductibles.
We feel the recommendations address some important changes to legislation, especially around disclosure and transparency by the insurance companies/brokers, but does not go far enough.
There are key areas not addressed in this report, likely due to the focus of the survey questions. This includes areas around development permits, building standards, industry regulation, the structure of the strata corporation and lack consequences for non-compliance by the insurance company around provincial and federal laws that need to be addressed.
We will continue to promote additional recommendations around the strata insurance structure for consideration by all levels of government. Housing affordability and sustainability is critical for all cities. Given strata residential properties make up a significant portion of housing inventory, this issue needs short and long term solutions to keep this housing option viable.
The Anchor Pointe Insurance Task Force is made up of a group of strata owners based out of New Westminster that started a petition in February raising awareness of the unfair and unprecedented increases to strata Insurance premiums and liability to home owners. The petition is available here http://chng.it/cvKzQGVD and at the time of the statement had over 12,900 signatures.