Protect Your Community With COI Tracking for HOAs

Residents trust community associations and homeowners’ associations (HOAs) to maintain common areas, uphold regulations, and resolve disputes. A good HOA keeps a neighborhood in great shape. But to keep their communities up and running, most HOAs need to hire outside subcontractors and vendors, and that opens them up to liabilities. Contractual risk transfer coupled with certificate of insurance (COI) tracking for HOAs are essential for mitigating risk and establishing an effective risk management plan.

In this guide, we’ll highlight the risk exposures common for HOAs and the benefits of managing risk through COI tracking. 

Areas of Risk Exposure That Necessitate COI Tracking For HOAs

The international trade association Community Associations Institute (CAI) identifies four main risk areas for HOAs: property, liability, net income, and personnel. While third-party risks are usually associated with property and/or liability losses, having a comprehensive overview of the risk landscape can help you better protect your HOA. 

Property

Property risks include:

• Natural: disease, storms, flooding
• Human: theft, pollution, vandalism, negligence
• Economic: new technology, strikes, market changes
• Technological: cybersecurity incidents, construction costs

When it comes to third-party risk, human and technological hazards tend to be most common. The actions of contractors and vendors could cause physical damage to property and/or expose your systems to threat actors. By extension, this could also subject your organization to economic perils associated with the costs of repair and recovery. 

Liability

Liability can occur when a third party breaches a legal requirement or their negligence causes harm. Though many HOAs assume that liability will fall solely on the party responsible for the incident, the HOA itself may face tort liability for the actions of contractors. 

Net Income

Net income risk can be associated with a decrease in revenue and/or an increase in costs. This is often correlated to fluctuating market conditions. However, a contractor’s actions could also be impactful. For instance, if they make a mistake that harms your reputation, you may struggle to maintain your normal resident count, thereby reducing your revenue. 

Personnel

Personnel risks include an employee, board member, or volunteer resigning, retiring, or being otherwise unable to perform their usual duties. This is unlikely to be associated with a third party, but it should still be assessed as part of your overall risk management plan.

Benefits of COI Tracking For HOAs

• Stability: An unexpected expense resulting from an incident with a vendor or subcontractor can impact your HOA’s financial stability and ability to continue normal operations. Ensuring every third party you work with has proper insurance in place can help reduce the risk of the financial burden falling solely on you. 
• Safety & Security: For your community to be safe and secure, your HOA needs to have the necessary time and resources. An effective COI tracking program helps mitigate risk while enabling the HOA to focus on more important details to protect their communities. Additionally, risk management, including COI tracking, can act as an extra motivator for third parties to put in the work necessary to do the job right. 
• Reputation: Shouldering the full weight of a contractor’s error can make the HOA look bad and reduce the trust of homeowners. Contractual risk transfer and COI tracking ensure the responsible party bears associated expenses, sparing your HOA’s reputation. 

bcs simplifies HOA risk management

bcs is the gold standard in COI tracking, and our powerful services can be the secret to your HOA’s success. Our full-service solution is our most comprehensive offering, combining our proprietary COI tracking software with support from a team of expert analysts. The self-service solution is designed for teams that want to keep their COI tracking in-house, without the need of juggling spreadsheets. It provides full access to the bcs app, which makes maintaining documentation simple and painless.  

Contact us or watch our self-service tracking demo to learn more about how bcs can help your HOA manage risk.