Zurich Comunidades GO! — insurance for residents’ associations in Spain
Technical parameters
Price and term
Price: calculated individually — by the sum insured on the building, its age, the condition of pipework and wiring, the number of staircases and the guarantees chosen
Term: annual, renewed automatically
| Three kinds of association — what each one gets | |||
| Guarantee | Residents’ association | Parking only | Single-owner building |
| The building Walls, floors, roof, façade, lifts, common installations |
included | included | included |
| Common contents Furniture and equipment in common areas: porter’s lodge, meeting room, fittings |
included | included | included |
| Gardens A guarantee in its own right, not a line inside the building cover |
optional | not available | optional |
| Cosmetic repair, common areas So the repair does not leave a patch in the entrance hall |
included | optional | included |
| Electrical damage, common areas Entryphone, lighting, gate motor, lift equipment |
included | optional | included |
| Water damage, common areas Burst common pipework. In the new product this is optional, but it comes pre-ticked in the quote |
included | included | included |
| Liability for water from common pipes When a common pipe floods a resident’s flat |
included | included | included |
| Glass in common areas Entrance doors, stairwell windows, façade glazing |
included | optional | included |
| Civil liability A piece of the façade comes away and injures a passer-by: the policy pays |
included | included | included |
| Pollution liability A new guarantee: fuel spill, discharges, contamination of soil and water |
optional | optional | optional |
| Legal defence for the association Disputes with contractors, neighbours, suppliers, debt recovery |
included | included | included |
| Theft from the common property Both the building and the equipment in common areas |
optional | optional | optional |
| Cosmetic repair inside flats Private units, not common areas |
optional | not available | optional |
| Electrical damage inside flats Wiring and appliances within private units |
optional | not available | optional |
| Water damage inside flats Where the source is private pipework, not common |
optional | optional | optional |
| Liability for water from private pipes One resident floods another |
optional | optional | optional |
| Glass inside flats Windows and glazing of private units |
optional | not available | optional |
| Pest control Cockroaches, rodents, termites in common areas |
included | included | optional |
| Cover for the association’s staff An accident to the porter or gardener: death and absolute permanent disability. Employer’s liability and employee infidelity are separate covers |
optional | optional | optional |
| Machinery breakdown Lift, pumps, gate motor. A maintenance contract is required where the law makes one compulsory |
optional | not available | optional |
| Vehicles in the communal garage Damage to residents’ cars in the shared car park |
optional | optional | optional |
| What is settled when the quote is prepared | |
| Point | How it works |
| Clearing blockages with no damage | The sum per event is chosen from €500, €1,000, €1,500 or €3,000. The number of clearances a year is tied to the number of buildings, blocks or staircases declared — one building, one clearance, and so on up to a maximum of five |
| Rain seepage of less than 40 litres | A new guarantee. No minimum age of the building is required. It covers both common areas and flats where the source lies in common elements. The invoice for repairing the cause is needed; the guarantee covers the damage, not the repair of the source |
| Emergency plumber and electrician | Optional first-risk covers. Call-out and up to three hours of labour are met; materials are at your cost. Through the insurer’s assistance service the sum is unlimited. The electrician attends a total loss of supply on a phase caused by a fault in common installations; the plumber, a total loss of water in the building caused by a burst common pipe |
| 24-hour assistance | Present in every Comunidades policy, with nothing to arrange |
| Contents inside the flats, single-owner building | The contents of each dwelling can be insured. A maximum of €6,000 per dwelling, by way of a specific clause |
| Liability of the managing board | Available except in single-owner buildings |
| Repair of pipework damaged by corrosion | An optional cover |
| Maximum risk on one property | Up to €30 million of Amount Subject. Two blocks joined by an underground car park count as a single risk: their sums are added together |
| Electric vehicle charging points | Communal points installed as part of the building are covered. One a resident installs on their own parking space is covered by their home policy, not by the association’s |
| Swimming pool | Only a pool on a terrace, a roof or indoors has to be declared expressly. An ordinary pool needs no declaration, but its value must be inside the sum insured on the building |
| Common areas only, without the flats | Not insured that way. The policy is built on rebuilding the whole building, dwellings included |
The make-up of the guarantees comes from Zurich’s Comunidades GO! product material (July 2025); the rest from Zurich’s official questions and answers on the same product. In the original table each kind of association is split into two unlabelled sub-columns; where their values differ, the more cautious one — “optional” — is shown here. Your sums insured, excesses and chosen guarantees are set in the particular conditions, which we go through before signing.
A residents’ association policy is not bought by a person; it is bought by a building.
The decision is taken at a general meeting, every resident pays for it through the service
charge, and it is the administrator who deals with the aftermath. That is why it matters more
than usual that the contract has no gaps: the guarantee nobody agreed on surfaces a year
later, once something has already come away from the façade.
Comunidades GO! is Zurich’s renewed product, with the policy wording rewritten from
scratch. It is built on rebuilding the whole building, dwellings included, and not the
common areas alone: you cannot insure only the entrance hall and the stairs.
What is new. Pollution liability. Graffiti removal. Total ruin. Machinery breakdown
— lift, pumps, gate motor. Theft from the common property. Emergency plumber and electrician.
Rain seepage under 40 litres. Gardens and common contents become guarantees in their own
right rather than lines inside the building cover. And electrical damage is indemnified at
100%.
Three kinds of association, and they work differently. An ordinary residents’
association, a stand-alone car park, and a single-owner building: each has its own set. For a
car park, five guarantees are simply not available: gardens, cosmetic repair inside units,
electrical damage inside units, glass inside units, and machinery breakdown. In a single-owner
building, by contrast, the contents of each dwelling can be insured, up to €6,000 per
dwelling.
Water is the central subject of every association. In the new product, water damage
to common areas has become optional: it comes pre-ticked in the quote, but it can be
unticked. We do not advise that. Clearing blockages with no damage is priced separately: the
sum is chosen between €500 and €3,000 per event, and the number of clearances a
year is tied to the number of buildings or staircases, up to five. Liability for water is
separate again: a common pipe flooding a flat; a private pipe flooding the neighbour. These
are different guarantees, and it is better to have both.
The people who work for the building. Porter, gardener, cleaner. The policy
separates three distinct things: employer’s liability for bodily harm to staff, the
employee’s own accident cover — death and absolute permanent disability — and employee
infidelity. Liability of the managing board is arranged separately, except in single-owner
buildings.
Electric vehicles. A recent subject in Tenerife that is already causing arguments.
Charging points installed by the building itself as communal work are covered. A point a
resident installs on their own space and pays for themselves is not covered by the
association’s policy — that belongs to their home insurance. Say so at the meeting
before something catches fire.
The age of the building decides a great deal. The year of construction and the
condition of the pipework and wiring affect the price, the excess, and whether cover can be
arranged at all. A building whose pipes have not been renewed in half a century is viewed
differently from one that has been refurbished. If the services have been renewed, gather the
paperwork: it bears directly on the terms.
Typical tasks that this policy solves
Agent's opinion Associations usually come to us after something has already happened: the lower flats have flooded, the lift has stopped, a tile has come off the façade. And almost every time it turns out the previous policy lacked precisely the guarantee that was needed. So I ask the administrator to bring not only the old policy but the year of construction, the year the pipes and wiring were renewed, and the number of staircases. Those four figures already show what can be done.
Water I raise separately and insistently. In the new product, water damage to common areas is optional. It comes pre-ticked and is unticked with one click — yet in a building with forty-year-old pipes it is the hardest-working guarantee there is. Do not remove it.
And about charging points. In the south of the island they are going in ever more often, and almost no resident knows that a private point on their own parking space is not covered by the association’s policy. Raise it at the meeting: it is cheaper than finding out after a fire in the garage.