Multifamily & Apartment (Habitational) Insurance
Habitational property, liability, and umbrella for owners and operators of 50 to 10,000+ units.
By Dan Wentz, commercial real estate insurance broker · Updated
The habitational hard market is over, and most apartment programs haven't caught up.
Multifamily took the worst of the 2019-2024 repricing: insurance cost per apartment unit rose more than 75% after inflation, per a 2025 Federal Reserve study of CMBS-financed properties, as standard carriers walking away from apartment general liability, and percentage wind/hail deductibles and assault-and-battery sublimits written into renewals.
Now commercial property renewals are falling, -6.3% in Q2 2026 per the CIAB survey. Liability hasn't followed: GL renewals were +2.6% and umbrella +5.3% in the latest surveys. A program rolled over with the incumbent will get some of that property relief, but probably not all of it, and the deductibles and sublimits added during the hard market rarely come off on their own.
That's the window. We rebuild the program and take it to the habitational markets now competing for the business, so your renewal is priced against today's market, not the one your current terms were written in.
A premium increase can also pull a property under its loan test. See insurance increase and your DSCR covenant.
Who this is for
Built for accounts like yours
Coverage
What we structure
Habitational property
Building, business personal property, and loss of rents, valued so a coinsurance clause can't cut your claim check.
General liability
Premises liability built for apartments: assault and battery, animal liability, habitability. The exposures standard forms now exclude or cap.
Real estate umbrella / excess
Layered excess towers to $100M+ when the portfolio or the lender requires it.
Catastrophe & deductible solutions
Wind/hail and named-storm structures, deductible buy-downs, and parametric or captive options where the standard market has walked.
Case study
A 1940s apartment community
~$50M
insured value, two catastrophe carriers competing
The owner had renewed with the same agent for years, and the results never changed, no matter what the market was doing. The premium had climbed to the point that the property was losing money, and he didn't believe his agent was doing the work the account needed. With close to $50 million in total insured value, a property built in the 1940s gets priced on its age unless someone shows the underwriter what's actually there.
So we did. Our team documented the risk controls and the full COPE picture (construction, occupancy, protection, and exposure), then brought in a risk modeling team to put numbers behind it. Underwriters price what they can see. We made sure they could see everything.
With that data in hand, we took the account to market and got two major catastrophe carriers bidding against each other. The renewal closed $130,000 lower than the year before.
He was also up against a financing deadline. We kept the lender, the owner, and the carriers aligned, and the program was bound in time.
Results depend on each account’s exposures, loss history, and market conditions at renewal. Past results don’t guarantee future savings.
Tools & guides
Tools and guides for this asset class
Free tool
Multifamily Insurance Impact Calculator
Free, no email required: see what your premium is doing to NOI, value at your cap rate, DSCR, and cost per unit, plus the deductible and valuation exposures sitting behind the premium.
Run your numbersFree tool
Wind & Hail Deductible Calculator
Free, no email required: a percentage deductible applies to each affected location's insured value, so one storm applies several. Size what you actually retain, per location, per storm, and per season, and what a buy-down is worth against it.
Run your scheduleGuide
Wind Deductible Buy-Down Guide
A 5% named-storm deductible on a $20M building is $1M out of pocket. How a buy-down shrinks that retention, what it costs per dollar removed, when it pays, and how to place it before hurricane season.
Read the guideGuide
Lender Insurance Requirements Guide
What lenders require, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac deductible and liability limits side by side, and where to find the requirements in your loan documents.
Read the guideMore tools
- Coinsurance Penalty CalculatorFree, no email required: a coinsurance clause cuts every claim, not just a total loss, when the limit trails replacement cost. See the exact payout on your loss, the penalty across loss sizes, and what it takes to cure the gap, plus the margin clause that replaces it on blanket programs.
- Commercial Insurance Rate BarometerFree: what moves property, general liability, and excess renewal rates, from cat losses and reinsurance costs to construction prices and jury verdicts, with the data on ALRenewalIndex.
- Captive Insurance CalculatorFree, no email required: a first screen for whether a captive is worth a look. See break-even loss ratio, capital tied up, and good, expected, and bad years side by side. Illustrative only, not a savings promise.
More guides
- Affordable Housing Insurance GuideSection 8, HUD, and LIHTC properties in your insurance program: what underwriters price, what the law says, and how to present the account.
- Certificate of Insurance GuideWhat a COI does and doesn't do, additional insured endorsements, and a checklist for reviewing the certificate a contractor hands you.
- Negligent Security Lawsuit GuideWhether an apartment owner is liable for crime on the property, how the assault and battery exclusion works, and which records matter.
- Captive Insurance GuideWho a captive fits and who it doesn't. Ballpark entry points and costs for group, single-parent, cell, and deductible captives, fit by property type, and a worked GL example.
- Hired and Non-Owned Auto GuideWhy general liability won't answer an employee's crash on company business, where HNOA comes from, and a checklist for owners and managers.
Local pages
- Birmingham Apartment InsuranceHail and tornado deductibles, older garden stock, negligent security, and lender requirements for Birmingham, Alabama owners.
- Huntsville Apartment InsuranceTornado and hail deductibles, vacancy terms during lease-up, and new-build values for Huntsville and Madison County owners.
- Montgomery Apartment InsuranceWind and tornado deductibles, older stock, City Council habitability scrutiny, and lender terms for Montgomery owners.
- Mobile & Baldwin County ApartmentsNamed storm deductibles, E&S wind, flood, and the AIUA beach pool for apartment owners on the Alabama Gulf Coast.
FAQ
Common questions
Why did my apartment insurance premium jump so much?
Because the whole class got repriced. Between 2019 and 2024 carriers absorbed heavy catastrophe losses, capacity left habitational, and even clean accounts took large increases plus new wind/hail deductibles and exclusions. That cycle has turned on the property side: renewals moved -6.3% in Q2 2026. If your renewal came in flat or up anyway, it's worth checking whether the program was fully marketed. Results vary by account.
Can you help if my carrier non-renewed me?
Yes. Non-renewals are routine in this class, and they almost never mean the property is uninsurable. They mean the account needs to go to specialist habitational and surplus-lines markets, presented well enough that an underwriter can say yes. We market it broadly and structure it to get there.
How large of a portfolio do you handle?
We work on accounts with roughly $50,000 and up in annual premium. That runs from a single large community to portfolios of 10,000+ units across several states.
Coverage described on this page is a general summary, not a quote, coverage recommendation, or offer of insurance. Requesting a quote doesn't bind coverage. Terms, exclusions, and availability vary by carrier, state, and property, and only the policy actually issued determines coverage. Insurance is placed through producers licensed in the state where the property is located.
Free renewal review
Talk to a multifamily & apartment specialist
We'll reply within one business day with when to start marketing it and what to have ready. Built for accounts with $50,000+ in annual premium.
- A second set of expert eyes on your program, free.
- Marketed to the carriers that actually want your risk.
- No obligation, fully confidential.
Book 20 minutes or call (205) 999-4884