As far as the $25/unit extra fee, that is not charged to the individual customer and often there is no additional charge (see the next paragraph). That fee is either charged to the condo association (typically my most common customer) or the individual unit owners. And that is only if I need to go into every single unit checking multiple windows/sliders, etc… and then provide individualized reports for each unit owner. If it’s an individual contacting me about their unit, I simply ask them if ALL units in their building are protected, typically they are not… but if they are, often there is no additional charge (see the next paragraph). If they are all protected and I am unable to check from the outside and need to gain access to each individual unit, then it’s usually pretty easy for the unit owner to convince their neighbors to shell out $25 for a wind mitigation inspection (vs paying full price) that may save them hundreds… The more common situation I tend to run into with unit owners needing to talk to their neighbors is not about opening protection, but a ground floor unit owner needing to ask a top floor unit owner permission for me to access their attic, but they never seem to have a problem.
Depending on situation, many times there may be no additional charge at all, For example: If i do not need to enter the units and I can just use the condo association name on the report. If their rear lanai’s all have identical exterior shutters and I can use my 100x zoom/drone/10ft selfie stick, whatever, and for the front I can access the windows right from their walkway and can see etching or labels, it’s not much different than inspecting a single-family home. And that’s the rate I would charge them for (the same price as a single-family home).
It’s always been relatively easy for me to inspect condos using these requirements to comply with what the form states it requires, with the exception of one instance. Out of all the condos I’ve inspected, I’ve only run into one instance where I had difficulty with a situation like this and it was because they went through like 4 property managers over the course of several months and I had to start all over from the beginning with each new person after not hearing back from the old one that left. All that they had to do was find out if all openings were protected on all units, all that I needed to find out was if there was just one without protection, I even offered to swing by to see if there was something obvious, but with the high rate of employee turn-over it took forever to work with them. Other than that one association, all the others have always gone smoothly.
However, I don’t think requiring condos to be inspected this way is limited to just State Farm, because I always tell customers to ask their agent on the outside chance theirs will accept it and if they do I then make a notation on the report that their current insurance company was making an exception for requirements on the form. However, that rarely happens, which leads me to believe it’s more than State Farm. As I mentioned previously, of my inspections I average over 1,100 wind mits a year, but if I had to guess, probably only 5% or so of these are condo buildings or units, so I am by no means an expert in that area, but this has been my experience.
Most importantly, the form specifically states that the opening protection is for the “structure” (not the unit) and on the form when referring to glazed openings, they made a point of using all CAPS when saying the word “ALL” which is why I make a notation about the exception on the rare occasion that a company will accept it by the unit (because that defies what the form is specifically requesting). I also want to be covered and I take what is said very literally on the form (a government issued legal document) that my license number will be on, because of the multiple stern warnings on the form itself about knowingly or through gross negligence providing false or fraudulent information and the legal repercussions for doing so. Unless they change the form, this is the only way I will do it in order to protect myself and my license as well as avoid future problems within the following 5 years from angry customers who were not aware of the situation. I also do not want to give insurance companies a reason to deny a customer claim, nor be sued for damages due to knowingly falsifying a legal document. Maybe there were some companies what would have rejected your reports besides just State Farm, but no one caught the discrepancy because they took the report at face value and just simply assumed you meant all openings were protected and they did not investigate further. But insurance companies are getting more strict lately, and I wouldn’t want things like that to haunt me in the future.
I want my reports to be accepted by all agencies and do not want to limit my customers as to their insurance company options, especially with the current insurance climate in our state and limited options. And if they need to switch companies a year from now, I do not want a phone call from an upset customer. I also want them to be aware of the false sense of security of only their until being protected while others under the same roof are not. By the logic of having only one unit protected in a condominium and receiving credit, it would be like giving a landlord with a duplex credit who only protected one side. Doing that, we may as well let someone with one unprotected window on a single-family home slide, it’s no different… It’s the same logic as having breast cancer in both breasts, but only taking care of one and then filling out a form saying that you’re cured.
Also, you made a comment about needing to get into every attic access in every unit??? If a single-family home has 3 attic accesses, do you go into every single one? It’s no different for a condo. If there is SWR documented in one unit’s attic, using 8D nails spaced 6 inches apart, then the other units under the same shared roof would be covered by that same inspection. There is not need to go into every single unit’s attic access.
Now I do know that some condo associations have their own insurance on the building that covers the owners’ units and then the unit owners can get separate lower cost insurance (similar, but different to renters’ insurance), in that case they may not care about the other units as they’re not covering the structure, just its contents. And there are some inspectors that actually just block off the opening protection section of the report for individual units.
This post has gotten way off topic. lol