HOA dues increased 98% YOY!

[Noah Bacon]

This morning the HOA on one of my properties located in Colorado Springs informed the owners of a "Special Meeting Notice" to ratify an amended 2024 HOA budget due to an unexpected high insurance renewal. I reviewed the proposed operating expenses for 2024 to see that our Insurance expense increased 386% YOY! ($99,600 ---> $484,206)

I contacted the HOA Community Manager this morning to seek more clarity on such an astronomical increase, but am left scratching my head. The 2 main reasons for increase were as follows:

-Many carriers have moved out of Colorado or no longer offer coverage for HOA communities, so there’s a smaller pool of insurance companies to choose from.
-The insurance climate related to HOAs in Colorado has been worsening in the past few years due to the hail storms and wildfires

The dues on the property were relatively low at $166/ month, but are now being increased to $329 / month. 

I am shocked that an increase could come at this scale YOY and am considering deploying the capital elsewhere to prevent any future loss on valuation.

Have any other owners in CO or nationally experienced a massive increase like this in 2024?
How has the value of your property been impacted by a large dues increase?

[Greg M.]

This is just the start of it. With the major reinsurers being hit so hard the past several years, they're all upping their rates to the carriers. Some states froze rates during covid. Those states are now seeing carriers leave the state or charging seemingly large premium increases to cover the past years. 

Look at the construction inflation rates over the past few years. They're crazy high numbers. 

One of my HOAs, the master fire/liability policy was +15% this year (likely the max the state approved), the earthquake was +165%, and my personal landlord policy got non-renewed as the carrier left the state. 20+ carriers refused to write a new policy. I finally found one at 20% higher than I was paying, but with a higher deductible and greatly reduced coverages (loss of rent from one year to 3 months, liability from $500K to $300K, everything else cut or excluded).

Personal opinion (I work in insurance) and those of pretty much everyone I've spoken to in the industry feel we are at least a few years away from anything softening.