Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Ongoing insurability concerns for cohousing

[b farris (btgf]

I am not a lawyer, but if a person or organization is not completely honest 
with the insurer they can later use that as a reason to deny claims.
Izzy

> On Jul 1, 2026, at 6:30 PM, Cheryl Keil via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> We at Wasatch Commons in Salt Lake City recently had to go on a search for
> a new Master Policy insurer (our previous insurer stopped covering COAs
> altogether).  In our search we had 4 insurance companies/brokers tell us
> they would not consider us because we were a cohousing development.  The
> insurance industry's lack of familiarity with cohousing + the idea of being
> "self managed and self maintained" did not appeal to them.  We were
> considered too much of a wild card.
> 
> I brought this up in a similar email to cohousing-L a few months ago and
> remember getting feedback from one responder stating "we don't tell
> insurance companies we're a cohousing community; we just tell them we're a
> condo association".
> 
> Our management team intends to take the same approach but we're wondering
> how far we need to distance ourselves from the "cohousing" label.  Are
> other communities considering removing the word cohousing from their name,
> websites, etc in an effort to look more like other "normal" condo
> associations?  We obviously want to maintain the traditions and culture but
> if the word "cohousing" is going to put us in jeopardy with our insurance
> and mortgages, then we are wondering how far we need to go to adjust.
> 
> Thanks in advance for your feedback,
> Cheryl Keil
> Wasatch Commons
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