What Does HOA Not Cover?
The HOA's master policy covers shared structures and common areas, not your unit's interior, belongings, or liability inside it.
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Where the master policy stops
Most HOA master policies cover the building's structure, roof, and shared areas like hallways or the pool. Some are written to cover your walls, floors, and built-in fixtures too. Your governing documents say which kind yours is, and that determines where your HO-6 needs to start.
What your HO-6 adds
Your unit's policy covers what the master policy leaves out. That often means the drywall, cabinets, and flooring if the master policy is bare-walls, plus your furniture, clothes, and other belongings. It also covers personal liability if someone is hurt inside your unit.
Loss assessment after a claim
When a shared loss costs more than the HOA's master policy pays, the HOA can bill every owner a special assessment to cover the gap. Loss assessment coverage on your HO-6 pays your share, up to the limit you chose. Check that limit against your HOA's deductible on the master policy.
Water from a neighbor's unit
If a pipe bursts in the unit above yours, the neighbor's liability coverage may pay if they were negligent. Often no one is at fault, and each owner's own policy pays for their own damage. Your HO-6 and the master policy both matter depending on where the damage sits.
Find out what your unit actually needs covered
Your HO-6 limit, loss assessment coverage, and deductible all depend on what the master policy leaves out. Compare quotes built around your condo or townhome to see what fits your coverage gap.
How much dwelling coverage does a unit need
The number isn't what your unit would sell for. It's what it would cost to rebuild the interior if it were stripped down to the studs today. That means new drywall, cabinets, flooring, countertops, and any upgrades you've made since buying. A one-bedroom condo with builder-grade finishes needs less than the same layout with a renovated kitchen and custom closets. If your HOA's master policy is bare-walls, that full rebuild cost falls on your HO-6, so the number matters more than it would in a building where the master policy covers more.
A contractor or your insurer can help estimate rebuild cost. A rough starting point is what you paid for any renovations plus a reasonable figure for standard finishes if you've never touched them. Some owners copy the dwelling limit from a neighbor's policy or guess low to save on premium, and both are mistakes. Underinsuring the interior means paying out of pocket for the part a policy was supposed to cover.
Townhomes complicate this because many are insured more like single-family homes than condos. If you own the structure itself, including the roof and exterior walls, and the HOA only maintains shared land, landscaping, or a private road, your policy may need to look like an HO-3 rather than an HO-6. Some townhome HOAs do carry a master policy on the buildings, similar to a condo association, so the governing documents still decide which situation applies. Two townhomes on the same street can need very different coverage depending on how the HOA is set up.
Personal property is a separate number from the dwelling limit, and it's easy to underestimate. Walk through what it would cost to replace your furniture, electronics, and clothes at today's prices, not what you paid for them years ago. Liability limits are worth a second look too, especially if guests are often in the unit, since a single injury claim can run past a low default limit. None of these numbers come from a formula. They come from what's actually inside the unit and what the HOA's master policy leaves standing outside it.
What the HOA's governing documents actually tell you
The master policy's coverage isn't guesswork. It's written down in the HOA's declaration or bylaws, usually under a section about insurance or maintenance responsibility. That document says whether the HOA is bare-walls, meaning it covers only the structure and leaves everything inside the unit's walls to you, or all-in, meaning it covers fixtures like cabinets and built-in appliances too. Some documents use the term original specifications, which means the HOA rebuilds to what the unit looked like when it was first built, not to any upgrades you made later. That gap between original specs and your actual finishes is one more thing your HO-6 needs to cover.
The HOA's insurance certificate or a recent board letter can confirm the coverage type if the governing documents are unclear or outdated. Associations sometimes change master policies over the years, including switching from all-in to bare-walls coverage to lower premiums, without every owner noticing. If your HO-6 was set up years ago based on an old assumption about what the master policy covers, it may no longer match. Reviewing both documents side by side, ideally when you buy or renew, is the only way to know where one stops and the other starts.
The declaration also usually states the master policy's deductible, which matters directly for loss assessment coverage. If the HOA's master policy carries a high deductible and a shared loss happens, the association is more likely to bill owners for that gap through a special assessment. A unit owner whose HO-6 has a low loss assessment limit can end up paying a large, unexpected bill out of pocket. Knowing the master policy's deductible ahead of time lets you size your own loss assessment coverage to actually close that gap instead of guessing.
Before you go
Pull your HOA's declaration page and find the word bare-walls or all-in. That one line tells you whether your HO-6 needs to cover the interior rebuild or just what's inside it.
