If the owners of shared property each have different types of insurance (or no insurance at all) and there is damage to the shared property, it may complicate any claims for the cost to repair that damage. There were a number of claims arising from the Canterbury earthquakes where owners of shared property had different insurers, different levels of damage and varying levels of insurance cover (ranging from no cover at all to indemnity value, specified sum insured and full replacement).
EQC provides automatic natural disaster insurance for homes, contents and land, so long as the home or contents are privately insured with a policy that includes fire protection. Land cover from EQC comes from the home policy.
Natural disaster insurance explains what we cover and how to check your private insurance.
Some of the complexities around insurance of shared property include:
- reaching agreement with all parties about the level and type of insurance cover
- understanding how cover is applied to each dwelling and any shared areas, and establishing the extent of each owner’s insurance cover determining who will pay for damage not covered by insurance
- reaching agreement with all parties about repairs, including repairs to shared structural parts of the building, such as foundations, party walls and roofs and how and when those repairs will be carried out
- where a building is a mix of commercial and residential, insurance cover can be more complicated - EQC may cover the whole building or only the residential part. See page 13 of the EQCover Insurers’ Guide.
Depending on the type of shared ownership, you may be required to have your property insured in a particular way. Check with your lawyer, your insurance broker (if you have one) and/or your insurer.
Owners generally need to insure their own contents, regardless of whether the building insurance is combined or separate.
You’ll find lots of helpful information for both owners and renters of unit titles on MBIE’s Unit Titles website
Multi-unit buildings has information about how EQC settled Canterbury claims for earthquake damage to properties with shared ownership.
Slopes and retaining walls includes information about land structures that may be shared.