When a condo or HOA board hires a company to perform an insurance appraisal, reserve study, or property inspection, the conversation usually centers on cost, turnaround time, and credentials. One question gets skipped far more often than it should: does the appraiser you’re hiring actually carry adequate insurance coverage themselves?
It’s an easy detail to overlook. But if something goes wrong during an inspection — an injury on site, property damage, a car accident on the way to your building, or a mistake in the valuation that costs your association money — your board’s protection depends entirely on whether that vendor’s own coverage is real, current, and sufficient.
Why Insurance Coverage Matters More Than Boards Realize
Community associations already carry enough insurance complexity of their own. Master policies, flood endorsements, coinsurance thresholds, wind mitigation credits — it’s a lot to track. So it’s understandable that a vendor’s certificate of insurance (COI) often gets a quick glance and a filed-away nod rather than a real review.
But here’s the exposure: if your appraiser or inspector is underinsured and something happens on your property, your association can end up absorbing costs that should have been the vendor’s responsibility. A slip-and-fall during a roof inspection. A dented gate from a service vehicle. An E&O claim because a valuation was inaccurate and cost the association a coinsurance penalty after a storm. Without the right coverage on their end, those costs don’t just disappear — they often land back on the board.
What Insurance Coverage You Should Actually Be Checking For
A certificate of insurance isn’t just a formality — it’s a snapshot of real protection, or the lack of it. Here’s what boards and property managers should be verifying before signing off on any appraisal or inspection vendor:
- General Liability — Covers bodily injury or property damage that happens during the course of the inspection. This is the baseline every vendor working on your property should carry, with limits that make sense for the size and value of your building — not just the state minimum.
- Professional Liability / Errors & Omissions (E&O) — This is the one people forget. If an appraiser undervalues your replacement cost and your association gets hit with a coinsurance penalty after a claim, general liability won’t cover that — E&O is what protects against financial harm caused by professional mistakes. An appraiser without E&O coverage is a real financial risk to your reserves, not just a paperwork gap.
- Automobile Liability — If your appraiser or their team drives to your property, this matters. Coverage should be current, and it’s worth checking whether the policy is written for “any auto” or only for specific scheduled vehicles — a policy limited to scheduled autos won’t protect you if a different vehicle shows up on site.
- Workers’ Compensation — If an inspector is injured on your property and their employer doesn’t carry workers’ comp, your association’s own liability policy can become the fallback. This is a box that should never be blank on a vendor’s COI.
- Additional Insured Status — Depending on your management structure, your association or management company may need to be named as an additional insured on the vendor’s policy — not just listed as a certificate holder. There’s a meaningful legal difference between the two, and it’s worth confirming which one you actually have.
Red Flags Worth Slowing Down For
- A certificate with blank fields where dollar limits should be
- Coverage that expired and hasn’t been renewed before the vendor starts work
- E&O coverage that’s missing entirely, especially for anyone providing valuations or professional opinions
- Limits that clearly don’t match the scale of your property — a $300,000 policy limit doesn’t mean much for a high-rise with tens of millions in replacement value
- A vendor who can’t produce an updated certificate quickly when asked
None of these are difficult to catch. They just require someone to actually look.
The Simple Fix for Insurance Coverage Gaps
Before hiring any appraisal or inspection company, ask for a current certificate of insurance and take a few minutes to actually read it — not just file it. Confirm the policy dates haven’t lapsed, check that the limits are reasonable for your building, and make sure E&O coverage is on the list, not just general liability.
It’s a small step that closes a gap most boards don’t even know exists until it’s too late.
At Prestar, we carry the full range of coverage — general liability, professional liability, automobile, and workers’ compensation — because we believe the companies protecting your building’s insurance position should be properly protected themselves. If you’d like to see our current certificate of insurance before your next appraisal or reserve study, just ask.
