Real Estate & Property Management Insurance in Southwest Florida
What actually goes wrong
01
Somebody is hurt at a property you manage, and you are named alongside the owner.
Premises liability follows the property, but the manager gets pulled into the suit anyway — because you hired the vendor, because you scheduled the maintenance, or because you did not. Across a portfolio this stops being an occasional event and becomes an annual expectation, which is why limits and umbrella matter more in this class than in almost any other.
02
A tenant is assaulted and the claim is about your lighting.
Negligent security claims are among the most expensive premises exposures in Florida. Lighting, locks, gates, cameras, prior incidents on the property, and what you knew and when. These claims are defended on documentation, so what you can produce about maintenance requests and security decisions frequently determines the outcome.
03
The mistake was a management decision, not a physical hazard.
Failure to maintain, failure to enforce, mishandled security deposits, a tenant screened badly, a lease renewed on wrong terms, an owner's property left uninsured because a certificate lapsed. None of that is general liability — it is professional liability, and management firms are sued for it constantly.
04
Somebody wires money to the wrong account.
Real estate is the most targeted industry in the country for business email compromise. A spoofed email redirects a deposit, an owner distribution or a closing payment. Standard crime coverage often excludes voluntary transfers induced by fraud, so the coverage you need is a specific social engineering or funds transfer fraud endorsement.
05
An employee takes from the trust account.
Firms holding owner funds, rents, deposits and association reserves carry theft exposure from the inside. Fidelity and crime coverage is what responds, and for community association work it may not be optional — Florida requires fidelity bonding for people who control association funds.
06
The roofs are the whole conversation.
Every building on your schedule has a roof, an age, a construction type and a wind deductible. In this market the roof age line item on a schedule of locations is often what decides whether a carrier quotes at all.
What the program looks like
The foundation
General liability
Premises and operations at your office and, depending on structure, at managed locations. Additional insured arrangements between owner and manager need to be built deliberately in both directions.
Commercial property
Your own office, contents and equipment. Owned rental property sits on separate policies scheduled by location.
Workers' compensation
Office staff plus any maintenance employees you carry directly. Florida's non-construction requirement generally begins at four employees.
Commercial auto
Company vehicles, and hired and non-owned for the manager driving their own car between showings and properties. This one gets missed almost every time.
Commercial umbrella
Extra limits over the above. On a portfolio, primary limits are consumed faster than owners expect.
What gets added on top
- Real estate professional liability / E&O — management decisions, brokerage acts, leasing and advisory errors
- Directors and officers — if you manage community associations or serve on boards
- Employment practices liability — including tenant discrimination and fair housing allegations, which are often excluded from standard general liability
- Fidelity and crime, including employee dishonesty — trust accounts, rents, owner funds and association reserves
- Social engineering / funds transfer fraud — the wire fraud endorsement, requested by name
- Cyber liability — tenant applications, credit reports, bank details, owner records
- Flood — separate policy, and a large share of managed property in this region sits in a mapped flood zone
- Equipment breakdown — HVAC, elevators, pumps, generators
- Ordinance or law — the cost of rebuilding to current code after a loss, which in Florida is frequently the difference between a settled claim and a shortfall
What makes this harder in Florida
01
Wind terms are set building by building.
02
Roof age drives eligibility, not just price.
03
Association work carries its own rules.
04
Ordinance or law is not a technicality here.
What we need to quote it
No cost, no obligation. If your current program is already doing its job we will tell you that.
Current declarations pages for every policy, including any existing E&O
Loss runs, five years or as many as you have
A schedule of locations with address, year built, construction type, square footage, roof age and insured value tree work
Number of units and doors under management, split between residential, commercial and association
Annual gross managed rents, commission income, or management fee revenue
Employee count and payroll, and whether you employ maintenance staff directly
Whether you hold owner funds, security deposits or association reserves, and average balances
Vehicle schedule, and whether staff drive personal vehicles on company business
Any prior professional liability claims or complaints
Copies of your standard management agreement and lease, if you can share them
Property management insurance questions
More commercial questions are answered on our business FAQs page.
Send us your declarations pages. We will tell you what is missing.
Three offices, one commercial team. We have been placing Southwest Florida property risk since 1982 — and we can read a schedule of locations quickly.