Indicative prices
A small building without a lift can be insured from around €400-700 a year; a medium building with a lift and garage runs between €800 and €1,500, and large communities with a pool, extensive common areas or several entrances easily exceed €2,000-3,000 a year. Split between neighbours, that is a few euros a month per home — one of the cheapest community expenses relative to the risk it covers.
What factors drive the premium
The main ones: the built square metres and the buildings sum insured, the year of construction and the state of the installations — especially the pipes, because water is the star claim — and the building's amenities: lift, garage, pool, sports courts or community employees, all of which add civil liability exposure.
Past claims count too: a community with a long list of water claims will renew at a higher price. Sometimes it pays to absorb small claims via a deductible and keep the insurance for the big ones — it is one of the most effective levers when renegotiating.
What it must cover
The non-negotiables: fire and damage to the building, water damage in common elements and the community's civil liability — the roof tile that falls on a car, the slip in the entrance hall, a piece of facade coming loose. Liability is the cover that protects every neighbour's assets, because the whole community is answerable for that damage.
Highly recommended: legal defence and damage recovery (unpaid fees aside), machinery breakdown for the lift, and aesthetic damage cover, which avoids arguments when a repair leaves a visible patch. Mind the coordination with each neighbour's home insurance: sums properly split between the community policy and the individual ones avoid paying twice for the same thing.
Is community insurance mandatory?
There is no general national obligation: Spain's Horizontal Property Law does not impose the insurance, although it allows the owners' meeting to agree on it. It is, however, mandatory in some autonomous regions — the Community of Madrid and the Valencian Community require communities to carry fire and civil liability insurance.
In practice, the obligation hardly matters: no community should be uninsured. A fire or a serious claim without a policy spills over onto every owner, and no meeting resolution protects against that.
How to get it
If you are the president, the administrator or simply the neighbour who got tasked with looking into it: send us the current policy and the building's details (square metres, year, amenities) and we will prepare a comparison across several insurers specialising in communities, with the covers properly sized and a price ready to take to the next meeting. Free and with no obligation.