Florida Condo Landlord Insurance

You bought a two-bedroom in Sunrise, lived in it four years, and just signed a twelve-month lease with a tenant. Your HO-6 renews next month, and nobody at the carrier knows anything changed. That is the problem. An owner-occupied condo and a rented condo are two different risks, and the policy on your unit was priced for the one you no longer have.

Florida law splits a condominium into two insurable halves, and putting a tenant in the unit does not move that line an inch. What it moves is which form on your side of the line will actually pay. Here is what changes, what stays the same, and what condo landlord coverage costs in Broward County.

What Changes the Day a Tenant Moves In

Occupancy is a rating factor, not a footnote. Carriers price a tenant-occupied unit differently because the loss patterns differ. Leaks go unreported longer. A supply line under a sink fails while nobody is treating the unit as home. And the liability exposure now includes someone who did not choose the property and did not inspect it before moving in.

Three coverages on a standard HO-6 stop matching reality once you hand over the keys.

• Personal property. Coverage C insures your belongings. Once a tenant furnishes the unit, most of the contents are not yours, and you are paying for a limit that protects a risk that moved out with you. What you still need covered is the landlord-owned property: appliances, window treatments, and anything you left behind.
• Liability. Coverage E on an owner-occupied form contemplates your guests. A tenant's visitor who trips on a loose stair tread is a premises liability claim against you as a landlord. Some HO-6 forms limit or exclude liability arising out of renting the residence to others, which is exactly the claim you now own.
• Loss of use. Coverage D pays your additional living expenses when the unit becomes uninhabitable. It does not replace the rent a displaced tenant stops paying. That is fair rental value, and on most forms it is a separate coverage you have to ask for.

Failing to disclose the change in occupancy is the expensive mistake. A carrier that learns about the tenant at claim time can deny for material misrepresentation or rescind the policy back to the renewal. Tell your agent in writing the month the lease starts, and keep the confirmation.

Where the Master Policy Stops and Your Policy Starts

Florida Statutes Section 718.111(11) tells your association what it has to insure, and the list is drawn tightly. The association covers the condominium property as originally installed, including replacements of like kind and quality that match the original plans and specifications. That is the structure, the common elements, and the shared building systems.

The same subsection then carves out what the association's policy does not touch inside your walls. All personal property within the unit or the limited common elements. Floor, wall and ceiling coverings. Electrical fixtures, appliances, water heaters, water filters, built-in cabinets and countertops, and window treatments including curtains, drapes, blinds and their hardware. Every item on that list is yours to insure, whether you live there or collect rent on it.

A lease does not shift one line item across that boundary. Your tenant's occupancy does not make the association responsible for your kitchen cabinets. If anything your exposure widens, because Section 718.111(11) also makes a unit owner responsible for repair or replacement costs not paid by insurance where the damage came from intentional conduct, negligence, or a failure to comply with the declaration or the association's rules. A tenant's overflowing tub still traces back to your unit number.

That last row has a statutory floor worth knowing. Florida Statute Section 627.714 requires a unit owner's residential property policy to include at least $2,000 in property loss assessment coverage for all assessments arising from the same direct loss, with a deductible of no more than $250. If your other property losses from the same event already took a deductible, no further deductible applies to the assessment coverage. Two thousand dollars is a floor, not a plan. Broward assessments after a named storm routinely run into five figures per unit, and when you move from an HO-6 to a dwelling fire form you should confirm in writing that the loss assessment limit came with you.

The Three Ways to Insure a Rented Florida Condo

No single form is standard across carriers. What you get offered depends on the carrier's appetite and on how long your leases run. These are the three structures you will see in South Florida.

1. Your HO-6 with a rented-to-others endorsement

Some carriers will keep your HO-6 in force and endorse it for an approved rental exposure. This is the cleanest route when it is available, because the walls-in property coverage you already bought stays intact and you are only bolting on the landlord pieces. Ask two specific questions: does the endorsement add fair rental value, and does liability extend to claims brought by a tenant or a tenant's guest? Some endorsements handle one and leave the other alone.

2. A dwelling fire policy written walls-in

The dwelling fire forms are the standard landlord product in Florida, and carriers write them on individual condo units with coverage limited to the interior you are responsible for under Section 718.111(11). DP-1 is the narrowest. DP-2 covers a named list of perils. DP-3 is the broadest of the three and is the one to ask for. Our Florida landlord insurance page and the DP-3 guide linked below compare the three forms in detail, including loss of rental income and the wind and flood questions that follow.

3. A commercial or non-admitted policy

If you own several units in the same building, rent on short terms, or the building has an open milestone inspection finding, admitted carriers may decline the risk. The coverage then comes from the surplus lines market, and sometimes on a commercial property form rather than a personal one. Expect a higher rate, a hurricane deductible expressed as a percentage, and fewer of the consumer protections that attach to admitted policies.

Short-term rentals are a different product, not a variation on this one. Florida Statute Section 509.013 treats a unit rented to guests more than three times in a calendar year for periods under 30 days, or advertised as regularly available to guests, as a transient public lodging establishment. A landlord policy written for annual leases will not respond to that exposure.

Liability, Lost Rent, and the Shorter Clock Under HB 837

As a landlord you are exposed to injury claims from your tenant, their guests, and anyone your tenant lets into the unit. Two 2023 changes to Florida law shape how those claims run. House Bill 837 took effect on March 24, 2023 and replaced Florida's pure comparative negligence rule with a modified one: a claimant whose own share of fault exceeds 50 percent recovers nothing. The same bill amended Florida Statute Section 95.11 to cut the limitations period for general negligence from four years to two for causes of action accruing after that date.

A shorter filing window does not mean smaller claims, and it is not a reason to carry thin limits. It means claims land faster and get worked harder while facts are fresh. Carry at least $300,000 in landlord liability on a Fort Lauderdale or Miami unit, and price a personal umbrella over it. Umbrella limits sit above a landlord policy cheaply as long as the underlying limits meet the carrier's minimum.

On the property side, fair rental value is the coverage landlords most often discover they skipped. It pays the rent you would have collected while a covered loss makes the unit unrentable, usually for up to 12 months. After a hurricane in Broward County, a unit can sit empty for months waiting on the association to finish common-element repairs before your own build-out can start. Set the limit against your actual monthly rent, not a percentage the quote picked for you.

Check the Bylaws Before You Buy the Policy

Many South Florida associations restrict leasing: minimum lease terms, caps on how many units can be rented at once, waiting periods after purchase, and tenant approval requirements. A policy written for a rental you are not permitted to have is not much use, and a lease that violates the declaration puts you on the wrong side of the negligence language in Section 718.111(11).

Florida Statute Section 718.110(13) gives existing owners real protection here. An amendment that prohibits rentals, changes the allowed rental term, or limits how many times a year you may rent applies only to owners who consented to it and to owners who take title after its effective date. If you owned your unit before the association tightened its leasing rules and you did not vote for the change, your prior rental rights generally survive. Pull the recorded declaration and every amendment, check the date you took title, and keep both with your policy.

• Request the association's current master policy certificate and read whether it is written all-in or walls-in. That determines how much interior coverage you need to buy.
• Confirm the minimum lease term and any rental cap in the declaration, then match your lease to it.
• Check the date of any leasing amendment against the date you took title, per Section 718.110(13).
• Require your tenant to carry an HO-4 renters policy naming you as an interested party, and make it a lease condition.
• Ask the association for its current hurricane deductible and structural reserve status before you set your loss assessment limit.

What Condo Landlord Coverage Costs in Broward County

An owner-occupied HO-6 in Broward County typically runs somewhere between $1,200 and $2,500 a year, and coastal buildings in Fort Lauderdale and Miami Beach sit well above that range. Quoted premiums vary widely because the association's master policy type, the building's age and roof, and its wind mitigation features do most of the pricing work.

Converting to a landlord form usually costs more than the owner-occupied version, often in the range of 10 to 25 percent, though the number depends far more on the building than on the occupancy change. Two things push it the other way. Your Coverage C limit should drop, because you are no longer insuring a full household of belongings. And associations that carry an all-in master policy leave you less interior exposure to cover, which lowers your dwelling limit.

The cheapest version of this is the one that pays. Before your next renewal, put your HO-6 declarations page next to your lease and your association's master policy certificate, and read all three at once. If the declarations still say the unit is owner-occupied, you have a disclosure to make and a form to change, and doing it now costs a phone call instead of a denied claim.