Why is body corporate insurance necessary?
When you live in a body corporate building, you don’t pay a separate insurance policy for your unit. Instead, the body corporate uses the levy contributions from all unit owners to pay for one insurance policy that covers the building or complex as a whole, as well as providing public liability insurance for the common property. This is necessary, because many facilities and services are shared in a strata property – and thus, the cost of insuring them should also be shared.
When a problem occurs
The insurance policy that a body corporate takes out will cover damage and consequential damage to the building, as well as to fixtures within individual units. It will cover the costs of reinstatement or replacement of the insured building, to its condition when new. It doesn’t cover normal wear and tear, however, nor does it cover the personal contents of each unit. When a problem occurs (for example, the building roof is seriously damaged in a storm), the body corporate will lodge an insurance claim with the body corporate insurer.
Now, body corporate insurance claims have something of a bad reputation. They seem to take a long time (sometimes months to be completely finalised – although many claims do process quicker than that). This is fairly normal, however, and can be due to a number of reasons.
Why your body corporate claim may be delayed
Backlog
In the case of a dramatic and devastating weather event, your building may not be the only one affected. If there are large numbers of buildings making insurance claims, there may be a significant backlog causing delay in assessing and finalising all those claims.
The process
As well, the process of making a claim can take some time, with many boxes to be ticked before the process can make any headway.
How your body corporate works
To top it all off, strata schemes are fairly complex, and the way they work may slow the claim process down significantly. There’s determining who’s responsible (the body corporate or a lot owner), the many different types of claims that a scheme may make, as well as the necessity for the committee to meet to make decisions and source quotes, all of which can delay the process.
How to speed the claims process up
While it’s not always possible to hurry the claims process up too much, there are a few things you can do to make it run as smoothly and quickly as possible.
Be organised
Don’t let communication breakdowns and missing paperwork slow down your claim. Be organised, and have all the documents you need to hand and ready to forward on to the relevant parties. To prevent unnecessary back and forth, support all the costs you want to claim with appropriate documentation, such as receipts and quotes.
Take photos
Be sure to document all damage as soon as possible after it occurs. You may need to start the clean-up process before your insurance company assesses the damage, but keep evidence in the form of photos and written accounts from eye-witnesses, that will help your claim.
Use a body corporate manager
Your body corporate manager can help you lodge the insurance claim, and can also provide general advice on your circumstances. The manager will directly deal with insurance brokers and companies on your behalf, to ensure your body corporate gets the most effective and economical coverage possible.
Once a claim is lodged, your body corporate manager will actively work with everyone involved, including the contractors, assessors, brokers, engineers and committee to ensure the damage is rectified as soon as it possibly can be. They will monitor the progress of the claim, as well as navigating through the damage and repairs.
Be prepared to be patient though and understand that the process will take some time. If you’d benefit from the services of a body corporate manager to help you manage your insurance matters, contact the leaders in body corporate management in Queensland here: https://www.capitolbca.com.au/contact-us/