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

[b farris (btgf]

It’s a risk. 

> On Jul 1, 2026, at 11:56 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> 
>> 
>> On Jul 1, 2026, at 9:30 PM, Cheryl Keil via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
>> cohousing.org> wrote:
>> 
>> 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".
> 
> 
> I’m not a lawyer but this same topic was originally raised when cohousing 
> groups tried to get bank loans in the 1990s. The fact is that cohousing 
> communities are formed and governed under local laws. Most are legally 
> condominiums. The buildings the company would be insuring is like other 
> communities legally established in the same state. So you are asking for 
> insurance for a condo — that’s all.
> 
> It isn’t lying about your activities or philosophy to just not bring it up. 
> You aren’t asking for insurance for group meals or social change. All of that 
> is your business. They don’t believe in it which is why they say it is an 
> unknown. It isn’t unknown.
> 
> When the problem was with construction loans, a cohouser created a 
> spreadsheet of banks that had made loans to communities. Banks coudl then see 
> that they were loaning to a lot of cohousing communities already. Just keep 
> the list updated and ask how many years the community has been insured by 
> which companies. You will have to contact each community to collect the 
> information.
> 
> Sharon
> ----
> Sharon Villines
> Riderwood Village, Silver Spring MD
> Founding member and 25 year resident in Takoma Village, Washington DC
> 
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