Association Insurance Claim Checklist: Running a Property Claim from Notice Through Payment

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Checklist
• Published September 26, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums · HOAs · Cooperatives

A property insurance claim is a deadline-driven process that the association runs, not the carrier and not the contractor. Two dates decide most of it: one year from the date of loss to give notice of the claim, and eighteen months for a supplemental claim. Miss them and the coverage question never gets reached. This checklist covers the claim from the first notice through the records you keep afterward.

The deadlines below are the statutory outer limits. Your policy almost certainly requires notice sooner than the statute does, and the policy controls whichever is shorter. Give notice immediately and treat the statute as a backstop, not a plan.

Where an item cites a chapter, the rule differs by association type. For background on the coverage split see condominium insurance responsibilities and the board resource on claim documentation.

Notice, and the deadlines that bar a claim

• Give written notice of the claim to the carrier immediately, in the manner the policy specifies, and keep proof of when it was sent.
• Fix the date of loss in writing, and for a weather event use the statutory rule rather than the day the damage was noticed.For hurricanes, tornadoes, windstorms, severe rain and other weather-related events, the date of loss is the date the hurricane made landfall or the event is verified by NOAA. § 627.70132(3)
• Calendar one year from the date of loss as the outside date to give notice of a claim or a reopened claim.A claim or reopened claim is barred unless notice was given in accordance with the policy within 1 year after the date of loss. § 627.70132(2)
• Calendar eighteen months from the date of loss as the outside date for a supplemental claim.A supplemental claim is barred unless notice was given within 18 months after the date of loss. § 627.70132(2)
• Understand which of the three you are filing, because the definitions are not interchangeable.A reopened claim is one the insurer previously closed, reopened for additional costs for loss already disclosed. A supplemental claim is a claim for additional loss or damage from the same peril that the insurer already adjusted, or for costs incurred while completing repairs under an open, timely-noticed claim.§ 627.70132(1)(a) and (1)(b)
• Do not let an open claim drift past eighteen months on the assumption that the file being open preserves everything.The eighteen-month supplemental deadline runs from the date of loss, not from the date the additional damage was discovered. This is the deadline associations miss.
• Track the carrier's own deadlines from the day notice went in.The insurer must review and acknowledge receipt of a claim communication within 7 calendar days, begin the investigation within 7 days of receiving proof-of-loss statements, conduct any physical inspection within 30 days of receiving them, send a copy of any detailed estimate within 7 days after it is generated, and pay or deny the claim within 60 days after notice. § 627.70131(1)(a), (3)(a), (3)(b), (3)(e), (7)(a)
• Note that the payment deadline can be extended by the Office of Insurance Regulation after a declared emergency, and confirm whether an order has issued.§ 627.70131

The policy package to pull

• Pull the complete policy for the year of the loss, not the current one, including every endorsement and the declarations page.
• Pull the flood policy, the equipment breakdown policy, any builder's risk policy on an active project, and the directors and officers policy.
• Identify every sublimit that touches storm damage: debris removal, mold or fungus, ordinance or law, trees and landscaping, and business income or loss of assessment.
• Identify the hurricane deductible and how it is applied under your policy.A commercial residential policy may apply the hurricane deductible on an annual basis across the calendar year or separately as to each hurricane. The calendar-year rule personal lines policies receive is not automatic here. Read the form.§ 627.701(5)(a); § 627.701(5)(b)
• Identify the appraisal provision and whether it was amended by endorsement, and note any time limit on demanding appraisal.
• Identify the suit-limitation provision and diary it separately from the statutory notice deadlines.
• Identify the examination-under-oath and document-production conditions, and what the association must produce on request.

Documenting the loss

• Assemble the pre-storm survey and the post-storm survey side by side, matched view for view.
• Keep a single claim file, controlled by one person, with everything filed by date.
• Log every communication with the carrier: date, person, what was said, what was promised.
• Keep every mitigation and emergency invoice separate from reconstruction invoices, with the dates of service.
• Retain an engineer where causation is contested, and get the report before the building is repaired.
• Keep the board's minutes showing what was authorized and when, as part of the claim record.Claim files become litigation files. The minutes are where an adjuster or a court sees that the board acted reasonably and promptly.
• File the claim records as official records of the association and retain them for the period your chapter requires.§ 718.111(12); § 719.104(2); § 720.303(4)

Your adjuster, and the public adjuster rules

• Understand that the adjuster the carrier sends works for the carrier, and decide whether the association needs its own.
• If the board engages a public adjuster, verify the licence and put the engagement in front of counsel before it is signed.
• Confirm the compensation percentage, and that it is inside the statutory cap for a declared emergency.Compensation may not exceed 10 percent of claim payments or settlements for claims based on events that are the subject of a declaration of a state of emergency by the Governor, applied to claims made in the year after the declaration; 20 percent for claims not based on such events. § 626.854(11)(b)1. and 2.
• Confirm the contract is in writing, titled as a public adjuster contract, and carries the compensation percentage in the type size the statute requires.The contract must be in writing in at least 12-point type, titled "Public Adjuster Contract," and state the percentage of compensation in minimum 18-point bold type before the signature space; a contract that does not comply is invalid and unenforceable. § 626.8796(1), (2), (7)
• Note the cancellation right and calendar it the day the contract is signed.The insured may cancel without penalty or obligation within 10 days after execution, or for an event that is the subject of a declared state of emergency within 30 days after the date of loss or 10 days after execution, whichever is longer. § 626.854(7)
• Confirm the public adjuster has no financial interest in, and takes no referral fee from, any contractor bidding the repair.A public adjuster may not accept referrals of business from a person with whom the adjuster has any form of agreement to compensate that person for the referral. § 626.854
• Note the solicitation restrictions, and treat a violation as a reason not to engage that adjuster at all.Solicitation is permitted only Monday through Saturday between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. § 626.854(5)

Assignment of benefits: the answer is no

• Refuse any assignment of benefits, direction to pay, or work authorization that transfers the association's post-loss rights to a contractor.A policyholder may not assign, in whole or in part, any post-loss insurance benefit under a residential or commercial property insurance policy issued on or after January 1, 2023; the attempt is void, invalid and unenforceable. § 627.7152(13)
• Check the policy issue date before concluding the prohibition applies, because a policy issued before January 1, 2023 is governed by the older assignment rules.For a pre-2023 policy the assignment is not automatically void, but the statutory requirements and the notice, estimate and rescission machinery in the rest of § 627.7152 apply.
• Instruct the manager in writing that no one other than a board-authorized signer may sign anything a contractor presents.

Deductible allocation, and who bears what

• Calculate the deductible in dollars before the board discusses anything else.
• Confirm who bears the deductible under your documents, because the statute does not simply assign it to the association.
• For a condominium, determine responsibility for reconstruction under the maintenance provisions of the declaration and bylaws, and assess accordingly.Where damage occurs from an insurable event, the association or the unit owners are responsible for reconstruction, repair or replacement as determined by the maintenance provisions of the declaration or bylaws. § 718.111(11)(j)
• Confirm the board established the deductible amounts at a properly noticed meeting and that the minutes reflect it.§ 718.111(11)(c)
• Identify what falls to the unit owner under the statute rather than to the association, and communicate it in writing early.§ 718.111(11)(f)
• For an HOA or cooperative, work the allocation from the declaration or proprietary lease, since Chapter 718's allocation provisions do not apply.
• Decide whether the deductible will be funded from reserves, from a special assessment or from borrowing, and confirm the authority for whichever you choose.§ 718.1265(1)(l)-(m); § 719.128(1)(l)-(m); § 720.316(1)(j)-(k)

Owners' claims, repairs and the dispute process

• Tell owners in writing what the association is claiming and what they must claim on their own policy, and do it before they call their agent.
• Do not advise owners on their personal coverage, and say plainly that the association is not doing so.
• Sequence the repair schedule against the claim: dry-in and mitigation first, permanent repair after the carrier has inspected, unless delay would cause further damage.
• If the carrier's number is short, demand appraisal or invoke the dispute provision the policy specifies, within any time limit it contains.Appraisal is a creature of the policy, not the statute. Read what your form requires, how the umpire is selected, and what appraisal decides and does not decide.
• Do not sign a release, a proof of loss or a settlement before counsel reads it.
• Retain the full claim file, including photographs and correspondence, as an official record after the claim closes.Supplemental and reopened claims and construction defect claims are built from that file years later. See records retention checklist.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes represents Southwest Florida associations in property insurance claims, from the first notice through appraisal and coverage litigation, and reviews public adjuster and restoration contracts before a board signs them. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Insurance page.