Property Insurance Legislation and What It Changed for Community Associations

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• 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

This page is current through the 2026 regular session. Most of the law that decides how an association's claim is handled is not in Chapters 718, 719 or 720 at all. It is in the insurance code, and it changed more between 2022 and 2024 than the association chapters did. What follows runs newest first, states where the association chapters add their own requirements, and says plainly which changes did nothing for a board holding a master policy.

2026: Citizens and commercial residential policies

One 2026 act reaches associations. SB 1028, Chapter 2026-150, approved June 16, 2026 and effective on approval, amended § 627.351 and § 627.3518. It prohibits Citizens Property Insurance Corporation from issuing new commercial residential and commercial nonresidential coverage in specified circumstances, and it directs a personal lines clearinghouse in which risk information is aggregated and deidentified, with election rights for applicants offered coverage by an authorized insurer.

Read the two halves separately. The clearinghouse is personal lines, which means an individual owner's HO-6 unit owner policy, not the association's master policy. The piece that reaches a board is the restriction on new Citizens commercial residential business, because a condominium or cooperative master policy is commercial residential coverage. An association planning on Citizens as the fallback for the next renewal should confirm eligibility now rather than at the binder date.

Nothing in the 2026 session amended Chapters 718, 719 or 720 on insurance. The association-side insurance duties you will read below are the 2024 and 2025 text, unchanged.

2024 and 2023: claim deadlines tighten, and fees do not come back

Section 627.70132 has been amended repeatedly, most recently by Chapter 2024-139, and it now reads short. Notice of a new claim or a reopened claim must be given to the insurer, in accordance with the terms of the policy, within 1 year after the date of loss. Notice of a supplemental claim must be given within 18 months after the date of loss. Loss assessment coverage carries its own limit: notice may not be given later than 3 years after the date of loss.

For a hurricane, the date of loss is the date the hurricane made landfall. For a tornado, windstorm, severe rain or other weather-related event, it is the date verified by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That definition removes the argument a board sometimes wants to make, that the loss was discovered later.

On fees, 2023 is the year that settled the question. HB 837, Chapter 2023-15, created § 86.121, which awards reasonable attorney fees to a named insured, omnibus insured or named beneficiary who wins a declaratory judgment on coverage after a total coverage denial. Boards hear about that section and assume the one-way fee is back. It is not. Section 86.121(2) says the section does not apply to any action arising under a residential or commercial property insurance policy. An association suing its own carrier on the master policy is outside it.

2022: SB 2-A, the one-way fee, and assignment of benefits

The December 2022 special session produced SB 2-A, Chapter 2022-271, effective December 16, 2022. Two of its provisions changed how association claims are litigated and repaired.

First, it repealed § 627.428, the one-way attorney fee statute that for decades let a policyholder who beat the carrier recover fees while the carrier could not recover fees from the policyholder. What replaced it is ordinary fee exposure under § 57.105 and the offer of judgment rules. For a board, the change is budgetary and strategic: the cost of pressing a disputed claim now sits on the association's side of the ledger from the beginning, and the decision to sue is a business decision as much as a legal one.

Second, it added § 627.7152(13), which provides that 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. That is the end of the assignment of benefits model for policies issued after that date. A water mitigation company or roofer that hands the board an assignment form is either working from an old form or working on a policy issued before the cutoff, and either way the board should stop and check the policy issue date.

The practical replacement is a direction to pay, a contract with the association as the paying party, or nothing at all. None of those gives the contractor standing to sue the carrier in the association's place, which is precisely the result the Legislature wanted. Plan the cash flow accordingly, and read our guide to documenting the claim before the first contractor arrives.

Hurricane deductibles and the per-hurricane option

A condominium or cooperative master policy is commercial residential coverage, and § 627.701(5)(b) gives that policyholder a choice most boards do not know they have. For commercial residential property insurance policies issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2006, the insurer must offer the policyholder two alternative hurricane deductibles: one that applies on an annual basis as provided in paragraph (5)(a), and one that applies to each hurricane.

The difference shows up in a season with two storms. An annual deductible is satisfied once and then spent for the calendar year. A per-hurricane deductible resets with each storm, which costs less in premium and more in a two-storm year. Neither is automatically right. What is wrong is a board that never knew the offer had to be made and never asked which one it bought.

On the association side, § 718.111(11)(c) requires the condominium board to establish the amount of deductibles at a board meeting, based on the level of available funds and predetermined assessment authority, and consistent with industry standards for similar communities in the locale. That is a noticed agenda item and a recorded decision, not a form the manager returns to the agent. Get the two decisions in the same meeting: which deductible structure, and how the association would fund it.

What the association chapters require: replacement cost and appraisals

Section 718.111(11)(a) requires a condominium association to use its best efforts to obtain and maintain adequate insurance to protect the association, the association property and the condominium property required to be insured, and it ties coverage to replacement cost. The replacement cost must be determined at least once every 3 years, by an independent insurance appraisal or by an update of a prior appraisal.

That three-year cycle is the most commonly missed insurance deadline in Chapter 718, and it is now visible to the state. HB 913 added insurance and fidelity bonding to the subjects the Division may investigate after turnover under § 718.501(1)(a). An owner complaint that the association has not obtained a replacement cost determination in five years is now a complaint the Division may take.

The other chapters say much less. Section 719.104(3) requires a cooperative association to use its best efforts to obtain and maintain adequate insurance to protect the association property, with no appraisal cycle stated. Chapter 720 imposes no general property insurance mandate on a homeowners association at all, because in most communities the insurable structures belong to the parcel owners. What an HOA must insure comes from its declaration, and that is the document to read before the renewal meeting.

Fidelity coverage, chapter by chapter

Fidelity coverage protects the association against theft by the people who handle its money. It is required in two of the three chapters and not in the third.

Two points follow. The measure is the maximum funds in custody at any one time, which includes reserve balances and the proceeds of a special assessment. An association that adopts a $4 million special assessment and leaves a $500,000 bond in place is underinsured for the months that matter most. And the coverage must extend to the management agent, which is a different thing from the management company's own crime policy naming itself as insured.

For cooperatives, the absence of a statute is not a reason to go without. It is a reason to put the requirement in the management agreement and the bylaws, because nothing else will put it there.

Where the money comes from when the policy does not pay

Two provisions do most of the work after a covered loss. Section 718.111(11)(j) makes reconstruction of property the association is required to insure a common expense, and makes a unit owner responsible for costs attributable to that owner's intentional conduct, negligence, or failure to comply with the documents. Deductibles and amounts above coverage are common expenses unless attributable to owner negligence.

The emergency power to levy a special assessment without an owner vote, at § 718.1265(1)(l), § 719.128(1)(l) and § 720.316(1)(j), is the bridge while a claim is pending. It is tied to the emergency and is not a route around the ordinary vote requirements for a capital project. Our page on hurricane and disaster recovery legislation sets out the emergency powers in each chapter side by side.

One further coverage line deserves attention at renewal. Loss assessment coverage on an individual unit owner's policy is what responds when the association assesses owners for a deductible or an uninsured portion of a loss. The association does not control that coverage, but it can tell owners, in writing, before the season, what a typical assessment might look like and why the coverage matters.

What none of this changed

It is worth being clear about the provisions that have sat still, because boards assume otherwise.

• No 2026 act amended the insurance provisions of Chapters 718, 719 or 720.
• The one-way attorney fee has not returned for property insurance claims, and § 86.121 does not bring it back for a master policy.
• The assignment of benefits prohibition applies by policy issue date, not by loss date. A policy issued before January 1, 2023 is not governed by § 627.7152(13).
• The 1-year and 18-month notice deadlines in § 627.70132 are not extended by an ongoing repair project, a pending appraisal, or the carrier's delay.
• Chapter 719 still contains no fidelity bonding requirement, and Chapter 720 still contains no general property insurance mandate.

The board work that follows from all of this is small and specific: know your policy issue date, know your deductible structure and which option you were offered, know the date of loss on any open claim, and know the current maximum funds in custody against the fidelity limit. Four numbers, reviewed once a year, prevent most of the expensive surprises. Our summary of insurance and hurricane recovery legislation tracks the same ground session by session.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes reviews master policies, deductible resolutions, fidelity limits and claim positions for condominium, cooperative and homeowners association boards across Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties, and works with boards and their adjusters on disputed and supplemental claims. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Insurance page.