Slide: the condo loss-assessment claim and the date-of-loss fight

The condo version of a hurricane denial arrives years late by design. When an association’s master-policy claim falls short, the association levies a special assessment on unit owners, and each owner’s HO-6 loss-assessment coverage is supposed to respond. The assessment may land in 2024 or 2025; the storm was 2022; and the carrier’s first question is which date controls.

That date question is the whole claim. Loss-assessment coverage generally keys to the date of the underlying physical loss, the hurricane, not the date the association voted the assessment, and the policy in force at the storm answers for it. A denial that treats the assessment date as the loss date can aim the claim at the wrong policy year, the wrong deductible, or a lapsed policy, and a late-notice argument rides along free because the assessment necessarily arrives long after the wind.

For Florida’s million-plus condo units behind Ian, Helene, and Milton associations, this letter is still being written. The unit owner’s file needs two documents the letter hopes are missing: the association’s loss records tying the assessment to the storm, and the HO-6 declarations from the storm year.