Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Illinois

The HOA can shop for new insurance but most applications will require disclosure of prior policies and "loss runs" (insurance payments, judgments, lawsuits) and other information, which could result in the new company charging as much, or more for the first and some subsequent years until it is satisfied that the risk has been reduced by lapse of time. But if the reason for your post is that the current company sent a renewal notice it should have given the HOA 30 days so it could shop. But this is really too complicated for a free post! Why? Because if somebody slips and falls on that sidewalk and has a valid personal injury claim, that alone could be huge. The fact that all the HOA owns is one sidewalk is not the key point; rather is what is the exposure to loss. For an HOA not to have at least liability insurance, and no reasonable reserve that might cover the cost of defending a lawsuit and paying another judgment (and this alone could be a huge amount), would most likely be a breach of the board's fiduciary obligations even if it is exempt from statutes requiring at least liability coverage. And then if the board doesn't have Directors & Officers Liability coverage, the individual board members could wind up liable for a judgment. And as a last thought for the moment, the value of most insurance policies is NOT only in the limits of coverage -- it is in the insurance company's duty to defend a case against the association, and without that coverage attorney fees could themselves become a huge burden -- defending a personal injury case is typically hourly, and could easily run into the tens of thousands.....This is the time for the HOA to engage an attorney to represent it and help with these issues.