Insurance is one of the largest costs a scheme carries and one of its most important protections. Clearview uses the building’s engineering reports, maintenance records and photographs to show insurers exactly how well the building is looked after. That evidence helps the committee obtain better terms and insure the building for its true value.
How Clearview protects the scheme
A current replacement valuation is recommended to the committee before each renewal, so the building is never under-insured.
Clearview takes no commission on any policy. The whole premium goes to the insurer, and our advice is free of any conflict. How insurance commissions work.
Cover for the people who volunteer on the committee is reviewed with every renewal.
When something happens, Clearview handles the claim with the full technical record behind it.
Cover is checked each year against the risks the building actually faces.
If the unexpected happens, the building has the funds it needs to recover, without placing the burden on the owners.
How do insurance commissions work?
Building insurance for a body corporate is often arranged through an insurance broker. The broker approaches insurers and places the policy, and may be paid a commission by the insurer. A body corporate manager can also be paid a commission or other benefit connected with the insurance. The law sets out what must be disclosed.
The building must be insured. Where the lots are in a building, the body corporate must insure the building for its full replacement value (Standard Module s 198(1) and (2)).
Commissions must be disclosed before the decision. A body corporate manager who will receive a commission, payment or other benefit connected with a contract must tell the body corporate in writing before it decides on the contract, and the notice must include the dollar amount. Insurance commission is one of the law's own examples (Standard Module s 156).
Every annual general meeting lists the details. For each policy, the notice of the annual general meeting, or a note to the administrative fund budget, must show the insurer and any broker, the amount and type of cover, the premium, the excess, the expiry date, and the amount, type and provider of any commission or other benefit given for the insurance to the body corporate, an owner, a committee member or the body corporate manager (Standard Module s 196(2)).
Quotes before a committee decides. When the committee puts in place or renews a policy costing more than its own spending limit and the scheme's major spending limit (the amount owners set by ordinary resolution at a general meeting, above which spending needs quotes), it must first obtain and consider at least 2 quotations (Standard Module ss 172(1)(e) and 174(2) and (3)).
What owners can ask to see. An owner can ask to see any policy, because each insurance policy is one of the body corporate's records (Standard Module s 231(1)(d)). How to ask is set out in Chapter 23.
No commission at Clearview. We receive no commission from anyone, ever. Not from insurers, contractors, brokers or agents. The fee your body corporate pays us is the only money we receive, and you can see all of it.
These section numbers are for schemes under the Standard Module. See Which Module Governs Your Scheme?