Arizona Title 33 HOA Insurance: Condo vs Planned (2026)

Arizona Title 33 HOA insurance rules split along one line: condominiums carry a statutory coverage mandate, and planned communities carry none. The Condominium Act (§ 33-1253) requires both property and liability insurance, while the Planned Communities Act sets no coverage floor at all. For most planned communities, the governing documents and the mortgage lender's rules do the real work.

This guide maps what each chapter requires, where the CC&Rs (the recorded Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions) take over, and where Fannie Mae's rules can override the statute. People search for a single Arizona HOA insurance requirements statute, but Title 33 answers the question in two separate chapters. For the wider market, see Arizona HOA and condo insurance.

What the Condominium Act requires (§ 33-1253)

The Arizona Condominium Act 33-1253 insurance mandate covers two lines. Every association has to keep property insurance on the common elements and liability insurance for injuries and damage tied to those shared areas. The statute requires property and liability coverage but omits fidelity, D&O, workers' compensation, umbrella, flood, and earthquake coverage.

Start with property insurance (subsection A), covering the common elements and the units too when the condominium documents require it. The minimum is 80% of actual cash value after deductibles, excluding land, excavations, and foundations. ACV subtracts depreciation. That means the payout runs below what a full rebuild actually costs.

Liability insurance (subsection A) covers death, bodily injury, and property damage arising from the common elements. The board picks the limit. It just can't drop below any figure the declaration already names.

Section 33-1253 does not require any of these:

• Fidelity or crime coverage (protection against theft by a manager or board member)
• Directors and officers (D&O) liability
• Workers compensation
• Umbrella or excess liability
• Earthquake or flood

Any of these can still be forced by the CC&Rs or by a lender, but the statute itself stays quiet.

Unit coverage and the annual deductible notice

The master property policy "need not include improvements and betterments installed by unit owners or the personal property of unit owners" (subsection B). In plain terms, the policy can stop at the original common elements. Everything inside the unit walls falls to the owner's own HO-6 policy (the personal policy a condo owner buys for their unit). How far the master policy reaches is a declaration question, not a statutory one.

Subsection K adds a duty many boards forget. Every year, the association has to tell each owner in writing that owners are responsible for the association's deductibles. It also has to name the amount of each one. How that deductible gets split among owners lives in the CC&Rs.

The Arizona Planned Communities Act insurance gap

The Planned Communities Act sets no insurance requirement at all. Chapter 16 of Title 33 (§§ 33-1801 to 33-1821) carries no coverage mandate, and no insurance-disclosure rule either, which puts it in sharp contrast with the condominium chapter. A planned community's coverage obligations come from somewhere other than the statute.

For the thousands of planned communities around Phoenix, Scottsdale, Mesa, and Tucson, the declaration, lender requirements, and directors' fiduciary duties may still require coverage:

1. The declaration and CC&Rs. Whatever the developer wrote into the governing documents at formation, which ranges from a detailed coverage schedule to one vague sentence.
2. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. If any unit carries a conventional mortgage, the lender rules demand property, liability, and fidelity coverage well above anything Arizona law asks for.
3. Board fiduciary duty. Under the Arizona Nonprofit Corporation Act (§ 10-3830), directors have to act with the care of an ordinarily prudent person. Running a community with shared assets and no real coverage puts them personally at risk.

Arizona Title 33 HOA insurance vs. Fannie Mae rules

For any condo with conventional financing, Fannie Mae's rules set the real floor, not the Arizona statute. The statutory 80% actual cash value minimum sits far below Fannie Mae's demand for 100% replacement cost, and that gap is where boards get into trouble. Size a program to the statute alone and the condo can flunk the next lender questionnaire.

The two rulebooks sit far apart on the numbers that matter.

Per occurrence means the limit applies to each separate incident, not the whole year. A condo that fails these tests turns non-warrantable, which blocks conventional buyers, pushes them toward portfolio lenders, and drags down resale prices. A board that insures a $10 million building to the 80% floor may face a coinsurance penalty on a large claim, depending on the policy wording, because the policy was never sized to rebuild.

A broker who shops the market, like Coverwatch, sizes an Arizona condo program to the Fannie Mae figure instead of the statutory minimum. That gap is where the financing problems show up.

Condo resale disclosure under § 33-1260

Arizona's condo resale statute now puts insurance on the table before closing. Under § 33-1260, when a unit sells the association has to give the buyer a statement of whether the unit is covered and copies of the insurance certificates showing coverage limits and deductibles. An underinsured association can no longer hide a thin program behind a vague line about maintaining insurance.

A few other points in the same section deserve a board's attention:

• The disclosure package is triggered when the seller accepts the buyer's offer, and the association has ten days to deliver it.
• It must include the most recent reserve study, if one exists.
• Resale fees are capped at $400 in total, plus a $100 rush fee and a $50 update fee, all collectible only at close of escrow.
• Knowingly or recklessly false or misleading disclosures expose the association to civil liability.

Planned communities deliver a similar resale package under § 33-1806, yet that version leaves out the insurance statement and certificates entirely. A buyer in a planned community never gets that coverage snapshot, because the statute doesn't ask for one.

How to close the Arizona Title 33 HOA insurance gap

Closing the Arizona Title 33 HOA insurance gap comes down to ignoring the statutory minimum and building to the standard that actually controls. For condos, three moves handle most of it:

• Write the property policy to 100% replacement cost, not the 80% floor.
• Confirm the certificate lists coverage limits and deductibles for the § 33-1260 disclosure.
• Check whether the declaration reaches inside the units or leaves that to each owner's HO-6.

For planned communities, pull the declaration and read the insurance clause closely. If it hands the board open-ended discretion, document a coverage rationale in the minutes and size the program to what conventional lenders expect. On fidelity coverage specifically, our state fidelity bond comparison shows where Arizona lands against states that do mandate it.

Coverwatch compares HOA and condo programs across more than 60 carriers and flags where a board's limits fall short of both the statute and the lender rules. Correcting limits before renewal avoids discovering a warrantability shortfall during a unit sale.