At JMP Insurance Brokers, we do more than just work in the Big City, we’re longtime urban dwellers ourselves.  We fully understand the complexities and challenges of insuring  condominiums (condos) or cooperatives (co-ops) in urban US real estate markets.

In over 2 decades, we’ve learned that the biggest misconception about insurance in the city is that proprietary  co-op leaseholders/”owners” don’t need to insure the structure of their units, since it’s widely believed that if damaged or destroyed, the building’s master co-op policy will pay for their damages, living expenses and rebuilding costs.

JMP Insurance Brokers can unequivocally share that these assertions are categorically false. Each day we advise existing and prospective clients that from an insurance perspective, co-ops should always be insured like condos — regardless of differences in ownership structures or that co-ops are not considered ‘real property’.    

99.5% of cooperative by-laws we’ve seen all say the same thing:  squarely placing on us on the proprietary leaseholder to pay repairs to/rebuilding of the structure of their co-op units from the “walls-In” or from the “studs-In” — depending how the by-laws stipulate – and regardless of the responsible party.  Since NYC co-ops, for example, account for roughly 70% of the entire condo/co-op market, this broadscale misconception is important cause for concern.

Through actionable insights like these, JMP Insurance Brokers consistently advocates for its clients not only to become better informed about best practices for insuring their condos and co-ops,  but more importantly,  better protected.   Allow us to put these actionable insights to work for you for all types of condo and co-ops, with varying levels of complexity, ownership structures, and a host of occupancy, usage and construction plans.