Condominium Insurance

Owning your own condo is quite an accomplishment. You don’t have to live in a big city like Saskatoon, Regina, or Prince Albert to own a Condo. In fact, many smaller towns and cities in Saskatchewan have condominium housing as well.

Condo Insurance can be tricky to understand, at Mello Insurance, we are here to explain all those baffling condo insurance terms and make sure you’re properly insured. There are different styles of condominiums, such as the apartment style condo and the townhouse style condo.

The condo corporation typically owns the building itself, and the tenants own the belongings inside their suite. Sometimes there can be a claim in a common area, such as “in the walls of one of the suites,” which can affect other unrelated units and can cause severe damage to another persons property. These scenarios get complicated during claim time. Who is responsible for the damage? Whose policy covers the loss? It is important to check with your condo associations bylaws to see how they handle these types of situations.

Each Condominium Board Corporation have their own set of bylaws, and it has many components to it. These components will weigh in on what type of coverage you need when purchasing your condo unit policy.

The value of your belongings should be the first component to look at when choosing the best coverage package from Mello Insurance. It’s very important to consider how much it would cost to replace all your possessions today. We strongly recommend taking pictures of your belongings as well as the unit itself to show any improvements and betterments you have made to your condo. For example, an upgraded kitchen, counter tops and flooring. Maybe this silly video will help explain things.

Additional Living Expense is another significant coverage on your policy for you to take note of. If there is damage to your condominium suite due to an insured peril, and you are unable to live there until the suite is fixed, who will pay for those additional living expenses? Your condominium policy will pay up to 20% of your belongings amount for any additional expenses.

Referring back to the damage in the common wall, (such as a pipe rupture), typically the condo corporation’s policy would pick up the damages as it resulted in a wall of the building they are insuring. However, their policy might come with a $50,000 deductible attached to it. They may split this deductible amongst all the units who were damaged in the loss or they may attach it to the unit owner who may have been responsible for causing the loss. Either way this is a lot of money. With your condo unit policy, you have a coverage included called – Deductible Buy-down Coverage. With this coverage, you can pay your smaller deductible on your unit policy to pay for the deductible of the larger condo corporations’ policy. You can increase this limit, so check with the condo association to confirm the deductible on their policy so you know you have adequate coverage.

Condo living can be a lot of fun, some condo complexes have common recreation rooms and even an indoor pool. Super fun until a guest of a resident slips at the poolside and breaks a leg. Now what happens if the injured guest sues the Condo Corporation for more than they are insured for? Each unit owner may be responsible for recovering the shortfall. The coverage called Loss Assessment for Liability on your Condo Insurance will have you covered. This extension is included with all Mello Insurance condo policies.

Contingent is a word most people don’t use every day. But in the Condo Insurance world it’s a very important word. Your Condo Corporation is supposed to have suitable insurance in place to rebuild your suite if there is damage caused by an insured peril. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and the condo corporation may be underinsured. That is when Contingent Coverage will kick into action when the Condominium Corporation does not have adequate insurance to have your suite rebuilt after it has been damaged. This coverage is automatically included in your condo policy with Mello Insurance.

Another example – let’s say you are running a bath, but you got locked in searching on Google for a good Saskatoon restaurant you wanted to order supper from and now your bathroom looks like the North Saskatchewan River flowing through Prince Albert. The overflowing water has gone down into the neighbour’s suite causing a large amount of damage. The condo unit owner and condo corporation’s insurance carrier might sue you for negligence. You’ll want to make sure your personal liability is adequate on your policy to cover you if you were negligent and injured or damaged someone’s property. Personal liability covers your unit and location, and it also covers you personally anywhere in the world.

As you are filling out your information for your condominium insurance, consider giving consent for the credit score discount. Giving consent allows our insurance provider to do a credit score check. With a good credit score you are eligible for a potential discount. If you have an unfavourable credit score, this will not affect you and there will be no increase to your premium. The credit score check is considered a “soft hit” which means it will not affect your credit score.

As our Saskatchewan license plate states, we live in the Land of the Living Skies. This can include amazing sunrises and sunsets, northern lights and falling stars. It also means that hailstorms arise a little too often, and they can be very damaging. When the shingles and siding are damaged from a hailstorm this in theory should be completely covered by the condo corporation insurance policy. There are times the cost of the physical damage is greater than what their insurance policy will cover. Again, this is when your condo unit policy will extend to help cover the levied assessment amongst the condo unit owners. Sometimes the glass can be broken by the hail and it is the responsibility of the tenant. Keep an eye on this as you may want to purchase a glass breakage endorsement on your policy.

Why Saskatchewan?

Living in Saskatchewan has many perks. Saskatchewan has endless stunning views and attractions. The Saskatoon Exhibition, Regina Exhibition and Prince Albert Exhibition are all very popular events during the summer in Saskatchewan. When travelling through Saskatchewan you must stay in one of the beautiful Saskatchewan Provincial or Regional Parks. We have numerous campgrounds located by many gorgeous lakes, where you can enjoy fishing, canoeing, water skiing and other amazing water sports.

The Saskatoon SaskTel Center and Regina Mosaic Stadium have hosted many spectacular concerts including Cher and The Eagles. Saskatoon is known as the city of bridges because of the large rivers that wind through the city, such as the South Saskatchewan River. The Western Development Museum, located in Saskatoon, is full of history and is an amazing venue for weddings. Regina is the capital city of Saskatchewan, at which Parliament Building is located in.

There are many great things to see in our great province. Many school students have travelled to the Saskatchewan Science Centre located in Regina. Prince Albert is known as the gateway to the north, as you will pass through here to get to many of the northern communities and lakes, including to the breath-taking Prince Albert National Park.

Through the winter months Saskatchewan has many hockey, curling, figure skating and ringette rinks to keep you busy. Our rural communities and towns live for hockey and the winter. Snowmobiling is another favourite for many of the locals. Whether is sledding up north in the snowmobile trails or riding in the fields at a poker rally, we love our snowmobiling. Talk to one of our insurance brokers if you’re looking at operating a snowmobile as there are some regulations you’ll want to know when operating. With all the snow Saskatchewan accumulates during winter, down-hill and cross-country skiing are enjoyed by a wide range of ages for many hours.

Thank you for choosing Mello Insurance. Our goal everyday is to have our clients insured with the best insurance coverage at the best price. We look forward to working with you.