I believe we’ll all be in for “insurance shock” this decade. The insurance business will never lose money and will pass it on to the building owners. This in turn, may lead many to not carry insurance at all. It will be interesting to see what will happen down the road.

Arnie Gess, Publisher

 

News item starts below:

Residents of a condo complex in Langley are reeling over what they say is an inexplicable massive hike in the cost of their strata insurance.

Kevin Froese and Jacklynn Loewy bought their unit brand new in 2015 but had to stretch their budget to make it work.

“We did our homework,” Froese told Global News. “We were shocked.”

“We felt very assured that we had purchased in a brand new building and would not encounter any massive disasters or huge unforeseen expenditures in the foreseeable future.”

Fast forward to December 2019 when the 181-unit strata got word that their strata insurance deductible would climb from $5,000 to $250,000 for water damage, with owners required to carry their own personal policies up to that amount to cover the gap.

Froese said the couple struggled to even find an insurer that would sell that policy.

The strata’s insurance premium also skyrocketed from $97,000 to $371,000.

“Keep in mind this is a now three-year-old building with zero claims,” Froese said.

Strata council president Adrian Kroll said residents are also getting reduced coverage under their new policy.

“A lot of insurance companies have left the condo market, we don’t know why, our broker doesn’t really know why,” he said.

“Nobody’s willing to tender offers to insure, a lot of companies are reducing the amount they have exposed to in the insurance field, so it becomes a battle for the broker to try and find an insurance company that’s willing to take on a project this big.”

Froese and Loewy aren’t alone in facing sticker shock.

Keep reading and watch the news video on Global News