NYC Condo Insurance Costs Are Rising

Updated Oct 16, 2026 · 13 min read

The Short Answer

Comparing like with like, a NYC condo's building insurance costs about 59% more per unit per year in plans accepted in 2025–2026 than in plans accepted in 2020–2022 (likely range 47% to 72%). That holds unit size, building size, borough and new construction vs. renovation constant. For a typical unit (1,000 square feet in a new five-unit Brooklyn building), that's about $790 per unit per year in 2020–2022 plans and $1,260 in 2025–2026 plans.

The cost was flat for years. Like for like, plans accepted from 2015 to 2022 moved up and down by about 10% around 2020 levels, with no upward trend. The rise began with 2023 plans: up 12% on 2020 plans, then 25% in 2024, 53% in 2025 and 59% in 2026.

Insurance per unit per year, holding unit size, building size, borough and new vs. renovated constant (a regression on 824 budgets whose Schedule A gives every unit's size). The range is a 95% confidence interval.

The core idea: a unit of the same size, in a building of the same size, borough and type, budgets roughly 59% more a year for building insurance in 2025–2026 plans than in 2020–2022 plans, and nearly all of that rise came after 2022. The plain medians show more, $800 to $1,440 per unit per year (up 80%), because recent plans also have larger units and more renovated older buildings.

One Building, Three Years Apart

The clearest like-for-like case is one building pricing the same policy twice. The sponsor of the Chelsea building at 517 West 29th Street filed a plan as HxH Residences, accepted in 2021 and later abandoned, then a new plan accepted in 2024. Same 60 units, same insurance broker (AllSure Insurance Agency), same five coverages:

Annual premiums from the insurance footnote to each plan's Schedule B (plans CD210080 and CD240168); the coverages add up to the budget's insurance line.

The same package cost 52% more. Property coverage rose fastest, even though the building was insured for less. The broker's replacement-value estimate fell, so the property limit dropped from $30.6 million to $27.56 million. Per $1,000 of insured value, the building's insurance went from $1.38 to $2.32, up 68%. The property deductible also doubled, from $5,000 to $10,000, so owners carry more of each loss themselves. The crime coverage went the other way, from a $100,000 limit to $1 million for the same premium. Insurance went from 6% of the building's budget to 8%.

What Happened in 2023

From plans accepted in 2022 to plans accepted in 2023, the median insurance budget rose 37% per unit per year, from $810 to $1,110. Like for like, the rise was 10%. Much of the raw jump came from larger units: a median of 1,070 square feet in 2023 plans, against 910 in 2022 plans.

The rest reflects a market that turned. A plan is accepted months after the sponsor gets its broker's quote. Of the 2023 plans whose footnote dates the quote, 63% got it in 2022. Sorted by the quote's date, like for like, quotes written in 2022 were 17% higher per unit per year than quotes written in 2020, and quotes written in 2025 were 63% higher:

Insurance per unit per year, holding unit size, building size, borough and new vs. renovated constant, in 372 budgets whose insurance footnote dates the broker's quote.

Offering plans usually name the broker, not the insurer, so they can't show why prices rose. Outside sources point the same way. NYC brokers reported umbrella liability coverage hardening in 2022, and national trackers reported commercial property and reinsurance prices rising from late 2022 into 2023:

• In May 2022, FirstService Residential reported that umbrella liability groups serving NYC co-ops and condos had stopped taking applications or were canceling policies, leaving two or three. It blamed large claims and verdicts, especially under New York's Labor Law 240, which makes owners liable when a contractor's worker is hurt.
• In June 2022, a Hub International broker told Habitat to expect umbrella rates up "at least 50% to 100% this year" and advised boards to budget 15% to 20% more. Carriers, he said, were pushing high-rise buildings to insure at realistic rebuilding values after years of accepting $200 to $250 a square foot.
• The price insurers pay for their own coverage jumped. Global property-catastrophe reinsurance rates rose about 37% at the January 1, 2023 renewals, the biggest increase since 1992, with Hurricane Ian among the causes, according to the broker Howden.
• Commercial property premiums rose an average of 16% in the fourth quarter of 2022, the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers reported, citing inflation in property values and hurricane losses. Marsh put U.S. property pricing up 17% in the first quarter of 2023, after 11% the quarter before.
• A year later, a broker told Habitat that carriers were raising building limits as rebuilding costs rose, and that higher reinsurance costs were pushing up property premiums.

Up in Every Building Size

Recent plans are mostly small Brooklyn buildings, so we checked each size separately. Change in insurance per unit per year, from 2020–2022 plans to 2023–2026 plans:

Change in insurance per unit per year, 2020–2022 plans to 2023–2026 plans. Like for like holds unit size, building size, borough and new vs. renovated constant. Budgets whose Schedule A gives every unit's size.

Insurance weighs most on small buildings. In a building of six or fewer units accepted since 2023, insurance is a median 21% of the whole budget. In buildings of 31 to 100 units, staff and other costs are bigger, so insurance is closer to 8% (from 19 budgets, a smaller sample).

Insurance Budgets by Year

The plain medians, before any like-for-like adjustment: insurance per unit per year, and its share of the budget, in plans for buildings without stores or offices, by the year the plan was accepted.

Medians, in plans with no stores or offices. Per unit: the budget's insurance lines ÷ residential units, rounded to the nearest $10.

Insurance went from about 14% of a typical budget in 2020–2022 plans to about 19% in 2025–2026 plans.

The Fastest-Growing Line in the Budget

From plans accepted in 2020–2022 to plans accepted in 2025–2026, the median insurance line per unit per year rose 80%. The whole budget rose 35%. No other major line grew as fast:

Median per unit per year among budgets with that line, in plans with no stores or offices. Lines with fewer than 50 budgets in either period are left out.

Why: Buildings Cost More to Rebuild, and Each Dollar Costs More to Insure

What the insurance line pays for

The budget's insurance line is the price of a package. The sponsor arranges, at the condominium's expense, a package policy that puts property coverage for the building and general liability for the common areas, often with an umbrella and directors' and officers' coverage, into one broker's quote with one premium. Few quotes price property and liability separately, so the figures on this page are for the whole package.

The two parts move differently. The property limit is the building's insured value, and it rises with the cost to rebuild. Liability limits barely change: most quotes we read carry the same $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate. Too few plans price the two separately to say across the market which premium is rising faster. In the one building where we can compare the same coverages over time, 517 West 29th Street, the property premium rose 72% and liability 38%.

How the insured value is set

The insured value isn't what the units would sell for. It's the cost to rebuild the structure. Most footnotes say the building is insured at its replacement cost, often "excluding excavation and foundation," as "estimated by the insurance broker," in the words of 2591 Briggs Avenue's plan. Some show the arithmetic: at 1433 East 52nd Street, "replacement cost is based upon $300.00 per internal square feet." Nine Chapel says its valuation "is based on the actual construction cost of the building and should be revisited and adjusted as necessary each year to keep up with inflation." Policies are often written for an "agreed amount," which waives the coinsurance penalty the building would otherwise pay for being underinsured.

Because the value is a cost to rebuild, it should track construction costs. In plans whose Schedule A gives every unit's size, the median insured value went from $338 per square foot of unit space in 2020–2022 plans to $416 in 2025–2026 plans, up 23%. It also caps what's covered: the 2024 plan for 517 West 29th Street warns that the policy "will not cover losses to the extent that 'market value' of a Unit may exceed its insured replacement cost."

Insured value and price, by year

Most insurance footnotes give the building's insured value, which lets us split the increase in two. The insured value per unit shows how much there is to insure. The premium per $1,000 of insured value is the price of insuring it.

Medians, in plans with no stores or offices whose insurance footnote states the building's insured (property) limit, a subset of the budgets above, so the medians differ a little from the first table. Premium is the budget's whole insurance line, liability included.

From 2020–2022 plans to 2025–2026 plans, the premium per unit per year in these budgets rose 77%. Two things drove it:

• Higher rebuild values. The median insured value per unit went from $333,000 to $450,000 (up 35%). Brokers typically set the limit at their estimate of the cost to rebuild, so a higher insured value feeds directly into the premium. It reflects construction costs, and also bigger or more expensive units.
• A higher price per dollar insured. The premium per $1,000 of insured value went from $2.43 to $3.01 (up 24%). Most of that rise came in 2025–2026 plans.

Buildings are also taking more of the risk themselves. The median property deductible in these footnotes went from $2,500 in 2020–2022 plans to $5,000 in 2025–2026 plans. The share of quotes with a deductible of $2,500 or less fell from 57% to 43%:

The property deductible, in plans with no stores or offices whose insurance footnote states one.

The mix of buildings matters too. Renovated older buildings ("rehab" plans, as opposed to new construction) cost about 20% more per unit per year to insure, like for like. They are also a growing share of plans, from 21% of 2020–2022 budgets to 32% of 2025–2026 budgets.

Risks Specific to One Building

Some plans warn of costs that depend on the building itself:

• Construction status. The Windsor in Windsor Terrace warns that insurance could cost about four times as much if the building gets only a partial temporary certificate of occupancy, enough to raise common charges by about 20% or require a special assessment.
• Flood maps. Park House Chelsea, in a plan accepted in 2020, says updated FEMA maps are expected to put the building in flood zone AE, and that "flood-related insurance premiums shall increase in the budget" if they do.

What It Means for Buyers

• Older plans understate today's costs. If a building's budget was filed in 2021, its insurance line is probably out of date. Ask the managing agent for the current premium.
• Expect renewals to rise. The first-year figure is a quote. Increases at renewal pass straight into common charges.
• Compare coverage, not just cost. Check the deductible and the insured building value in the footnote. Deductibles are rising, and a low limit can make a quote look cheap.
• Small buildings carry more risk per owner. With fewer owners to share the premium, one bad renewal moves everyone's common charges.

Not sure what the building's policy covers versus yours? See condo insurance vs. homeowners insurance. Compare insurance across buildings on our operating expense benchmarks, or search "buildings with insurance over 20% of budget" on The Condo Book Project.

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