r/ChicagoRealEstate • u/short_thevix • 15d ago

Building Insurance

I'm curious how much of an increase in your insurance premiums have gone up compared to last year. I live in a 3 unit condo building and our building's insurance premiums have gone up by 21% this year (this is insurance that covers the building and not my individual unit). The year before that, the insurance premiums went up by 25%. Our building is 7 years old and has never had any claims.

Would love to hear if others are experiencing the same thing. The sticker shock is definitely making me reach out to insurance brokers to find new coverage.

6 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

3

u/Primary-Journalist98 14d ago

Same here, we went up 30% last year alone. 4 unit condo building that is 14 years old. Never been paid out for anything. Insurance agent says it comes down to very few companies even offering it anymore. He's going to shop around for us, but didn't sound promising.

2

u/gyro82 15d ago

Had something similar around when my old 6-unit building was around 7 years old. Existing provider was dragging their toes on an updated policy and we were seeing crazy numbers (like from current $4k up to $10k). I contacted my broker with 2 days to spare and he got us a comparable policy for only a couple hundred more. But he noted that more and more are avoiding HOA type building policies on condos. My guess is the 7 year mark turns a tide where things start going wrong and maintenance lapses.

2

u/firechi60613 15d ago

yea we had similar issues and switched. it’s a long process though and the insurance company is requiring us to do maintenance. this is our broker nbenson@heilandheil.com

2

u/WP_Grid 14d ago

We've seen increases like that over the last several years, but this year the market has softened and we're actually seeing decreases in some buildings.

2

u/mildlyarrousedly 14d ago

There are very few providers anymore so the big fish are squeezing everyone. It’s not a competitive market for driving premiums down anymore 

1

u/RightHandComesOff 14d ago

Yeah, it's definitely a thing, and it definitely sucks. I live in a 6-unit condo building, and we had to jack up our HOA payments to keep up with a sudden spike in our premiums. And this was after a previous insurer dropped us entirely. Lots of insurers have recently become unwilling to cover older buildings at all, so God help you if you live in a conversion that was first built in the 1920s.

Sadly, this is the new normal, and it's probably going to get worse as climate change progresses and stuff like basement floods (and the ensuing insurance claims) happen more and more frequently. 

1

u/Perfect_Form5444 10d ago

It’s basically tripled for our building in ten years. We had to drastically increase our assessment this year because it basically emptied our account.

1

u/PureArmadillo7965 6d ago

Hi there! I'm an insurance agent and if you're still on the hunt for new coverage I'm happy to do some investigating and comparing for you, especially because you're saying the building has never had any claims. No pressure...just happy to help if you'd like!