Condo Master Policy vs Your Policy
The master policy covers the building and common areas. Your HO-6 policy covers your unit's interior, belongings, and liability.
Free to compare
Where the master policy ends and your HO-6 starts
The HOA's master policy is written for the building, not your unit, and how far it reaches inside your walls depends on whether the HOA carries bare-walls or all-in coverage. Your condo's governing documents say which one it is, and that document is worth finding before you set your own coverage amount. Bare-walls means the master policy stops at the drywall, so your HO-6 needs to cover built-in cabinets, flooring, fixtures, and any upgrades you made. All-in means the master policy covers more of that finish work, so your HO-6 can carry less. Either way, your HO-6 is the one that pays for your furniture, your liability if someone gets hurt in your unit, and your living costs if the unit becomes unlivable after a covered loss.
Find out what your unit would cost you
If the master policy is bare-walls and your HO-6 is set too low, a burst pipe or fire leaves you covering cabinets, flooring, and upgrades yourself. Compare quotes to match coverage to what your unit actually needs.
How loss assessment works when the HOA's coverage falls short
When a loss affects the building, like a roof fire or a burst pipe in a common hallway, the master policy pays first. If the damage or liability claim goes over what the master policy covers, or if the master policy has a high deductible, the HOA can bill unit owners for the difference through a special assessment. This can happen even if the damage never touched your unit. Most HO-6 policies include loss assessment coverage, usually a set dollar amount, to pick up your share of that bill. Check your declarations page for the limit. If the HOA's master policy carries a large deductible, like $25,000 or $50,000, and the loss assessment coverage on your HO-6 is only $1,000 or $5,000, raising that limit is worth asking about.
Water from a neighbor's unit is one of the most common disputes in condo living, and who pays depends on where the water started and why. If a pipe bursts inside the unit above you, that owner's HO-6 liability coverage may pay for damage to your unit if they're found negligent, say they knew about a leak and didn't fix it. If it's a sudden accident with no negligence, your own HO-6 typically covers the damage to your unit and belongings, and you'd look to your own policy rather than waiting on a claim against your neighbor. The master policy generally doesn't enter this picture unless the water damaged common areas like a shared wall or the floor below the slab. Because these cases turn on fault and can take time to sort out, carrying your own HO-6 with enough dwelling coverage to fix your own unit, and not relying on a neighbor's policy, is what keeps you from being stuck waiting.
Figuring out how much HO-6 dwelling coverage a unit needs starts with the bare-walls or all-in question. A unit with granite counters, hardwood floors, and a renovated kitchen needs more coverage under a bare-walls master policy than the same unit would need under all-in coverage. Some condo owners ask a contractor for a rough rebuild estimate on interior finishes alone, separate from what the whole unit would sell for, since that sale price includes the land and building structure the master policy already covers.
Townhomes complicate this because not every townhome is part of an HOA with a master policy. Some townhomes are treated like detached single-family homes for insurance purposes, in which case the owner needs a standard HO-3 policy covering the whole structure, not an HO-6. Others sit under an HOA that insures shared roofs, siding, or party walls, closer to the condo setup. Which applies comes down to the governing documents and whether the HOA's policy names the structure or just common grounds, so that's the first thing to check before assuming either way.
What the HO-6 declarations page actually lists
An HO-6 policy breaks into pieces, and the declarations page names each one with its own dollar limit. Coverage A, sometimes called dwelling or property coverage, is the amount for interior finishes, built-ins, and any upgrades, the number tied to the bare-walls or all-in question. Coverage C is personal property, for furniture, electronics, and everything that isn't attached to the unit. Loss assessment is usually its own line. Loss of use, covering a hotel or rental if the unit becomes unlivable, is another. Liability sits apart from all of these and pays if someone is hurt in the unit or if damage from the unit affects someone else. Reading the declarations page line by line is the only way to know what's actually there, since two HO-6 policies can look similar on price and differ a lot on what each limit covers.
Replacement cost versus actual cash value is worth checking on both the personal property and interior finish coverage. Actual cash value pays what the damaged item was worth, accounting for age and wear, so a ten-year-old sofa gets paid out at a fraction of what a new one costs. Replacement cost pays what it takes to buy the equivalent new item, which costs more in premium but matters a lot after a real loss. Most insurers offer a choice between the two, and the declarations page states which one applies.
A deductible applies to the HO-6 the same way it applies to any home policy, and it's separate from the master policy's deductible. If a pipe bursts inside the unit and the damage comes to $8,000, the HO-6 deductible is what's subtracted before the policy pays, regardless of what the HOA's master policy deductible looks like. Some HOAs pass their master policy deductible on to the unit owner when the HOA's policy pays for a claim that originated in that unit, through the governing documents or a chargeback clause. Whether that applies is worth checking in the HOA's bylaws, not assumed from the insurance policy alone.
Condo boards sometimes change insurers or adjust the master policy's coverage without much notice to owners, and a bare-walls policy can become an all-in policy or the reverse. When that happens, an HO-6 set correctly for the old arrangement may be wrong for the new one. Checking in with the HOA once a year, around renewal time for either policy, is the only way to catch that kind of change before a claim turns up the gap.
Before you compare coverage
Pull your condo's governing documents and find the bare-walls or all-in clause, then check your HO-6 declarations page against it. If the two don't match, that's the gap to fix first.
