Multiplex insurance in Vancouver: what it covers and who arranges it

A homeowner asked us at handover last month whether the 2-5-10 warranty meant she didn't need to worry about insurance. It's a fair question, and the honest answer is no, they cover completely different things, and a new multiplex owner needs to understand both before keys change hands.

Insurance and warranty are not the same protection

BC's mandatory 2-5-10 home warranty covers construction defects on a fixed schedule: 2 years on labour and materials, 5 years on the building envelope, and 10 years on the structure. It exists because something was built wrong, and it has an expiry date built into its name.

Insurance covers something entirely different: perils that can happen to a building regardless of how well it was built. Fire, water escape from a burst pipe, windstorm, vandalism, a visitor injured on the property. None of that is a construction defect, and none of it is covered by the warranty. Insurance doesn't expire on a fixed schedule either; a multiplex needs a policy in place for as long as it stands, renewed every year the same way a single-family home's does.

What BC law actually requires a strata multiplex to carry

Most Vancouver-area multiplexes sold as separately titled units are strata corporations, and BC's Strata Property Act sets out exactly what that corporation must insure. It has to cover common property, common assets, and the buildings shown on the strata plan, along with the original fixtures and fittings in each strata lot, at full replacement value. The Act also requires the strata corporation to carry a minimum of 2 million dollars in liability insurance.

That's a legal floor, not a suggestion. A strata council can't decide to under-insure the building to save on premiums; the Act sets the standard the policy has to meet. Individual owners then typically arrange their own coverage on top of that for contents, personal liability inside their own unit, and any improvements they've made beyond the original fixtures the strata policy already covers.

Fee-simple works differently

Not every multiplex is a strata. Where the lot and zoning allow it, especially for a row of ground-oriented homes, a multiplex can be subdivided fee-simple instead, giving each home its own titled parcel with no strata corporation at all. We cover the tradeoffs of that choice in strata versus fee-simple ownership.

The insurance consequence follows directly from that structure. With no strata corporation, there's no single policy covering the whole building. Each fee-simple owner insures their own home the way a single-family homeowner always has, rather than sharing coverage and premiums across a strata corporation. The ownership decision made at the start of a project is what decides which arrangement applies, well before insurance ever comes up.

Why costs have been moving, and why we won't guess at a number

The Government of BC has published directly on this: strata insurance premiums and deductibles rose sharply across the province in recent years, and the province took steps in response, including bringing more transparency to how strata insurance is priced and sold. That's a real, documented trend, not a rumour homeowners are picking up secondhand.

What we won't do is hand a new owner a made-up premium figure, because it depends on the insurer, the building's construction, its location, its claims history, and the year the policy is written, none of which we can responsibly generalize into a single number. What we can say is that insurance is worth quoting early, while a multiplex is still under construction, rather than waiting until handover week to discover what coverage will actually cost and whether a chosen insurer will even write a policy for a small strata corporation.

Where insurance fits in the build sequence

During construction, a separate policy, builder's risk insurance, covers the building against loss while it's incomplete and most exposed. That's arranged by the builder and runs through substantial completion. It is not the same as the ongoing strata or fee-simple policy that takes over once the building is occupied, and the handoff between the two needs to happen without a gap.

• Builder's risk insurance covers the construction period, arranged by the builder
• The strata corporation's (or each fee-simple owner's) ongoing policy needs to be confirmed before occupancy, not after
• Warranty enrollment, insurance confirmation, and the occupancy permit all belong in the same handover checklist
• A strata council should get insurance quotes lined up before the building is finished, since some insurers underwrite small stratas differently than large condo buildings

We treat insurance confirmation as part of handover, alongside warranty enrollment and the occupancy permit itself, covered in how we build quality control into every multiplex project. An owner shouldn't be figuring out coverage for the first time in the same week they're getting keys.

The honest starting point

If you're weighing a multiplex on a Vancouver or Metro Vancouver lot, insurance is one more reason the strata-versus-fee-simple decision matters earlier than most homeowners expect: it decides who arranges coverage and how it's structured, alongside how the homes get sold. A Feasibility & Equity Review works through that ownership question alongside zoning, unit count, and partnership structure, so the insurance conversation is settled well before the end of the project.

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