Apartment Building Insurance in Greenwich, CT

By Jonathan Merwin, Founder and CEO, Licensed Insurance Advisor

Greenwich is known for its estates, but it has a real rental market too. Byram and Chickahominy are full of two- and three-families on tight lots. Glenville and Pemberwick have mill-era houses and newer apartment buildings along the Byram River. Central Greenwich has walk-ups off Putnam Avenue and apartments over the shops on and around Greenwich Avenue, and Cos Cob and Old Greenwich have their own small multi-families near the train. The building you own decides which policy it needs and which risks matter most.

This page is for owners of Greenwich apartment buildings: the two- to four-family you live in or rent out, and the five-unit-and-up building that has crossed into commercial habitational coverage. If you own one or two rental houses or condos, our Greenwich landlord insurance page is the better fit.

Portsmouth Atlantic Insurance is a family-owned independent agency founded in 2005. We’re licensed in 10 states, we compare 40+ carriers and our team has 200+ years of combined experience. We serve Greenwich owners from a Connecticut office and by phone at (603) 431-4020, email and online. We have 1,000+ Google reviews and over 2,000 testimonials and an A+ BBB rating. On the business side we write habitational policies only, meaning apartment buildings and condo associations. We don’t charge any fees.

Greenwich’s rental stock, by building size

The Census Bureau’s 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts about 25,600 housing units in Greenwich. About 16,300 are detached single-family homes, which is what most people picture. But about 2,500 units are in two-unit buildings and about 1,200 in three- and four-unit buildings. Another 2,800 are in buildings of five to 49 units, and about 900 are in buildings of 50 or more (B25024).

Those apartments aren’t spread evenly. The two- to four-families cluster in Byram, Chickahominy, Glenville and parts of central Greenwich and Cos Cob. The five-plus buildings are mostly in and around downtown, along Route 1 and in Glenville and Pemberwick. Many are mixed-use, with retail or offices on the ground floor.

Age matters as much as size. About 6,600 Greenwich units were built in 1939 or earlier, and about 4,000 more in the 1950s. Only about 1,600 date from 2010 or later. A 1920s brick walk-up in central Greenwich and a 2015 building in Glenville get underwritten very differently.

Two- to four-family buildings in Greenwich

If you live in one of the units

An owner who lives in a two-, three- or four-family can often insure the whole building on a homeowners form, covering the structure, your belongings and your liability, with loss of rents on the units you rent out. With Greenwich rebuild costs, the dwelling limit deserves real attention: it should reflect what it would cost to rebuild the house, with its finishes, on its lot.

If you don’t live there

A non-owner-occupied two- to four-family goes on a dwelling fire policy. We usually suggest the open-perils DP-3 form with replacement cost on the building, fair rental value for every unit and premises liability. For one- to four-unit Greenwich buildings we compare Vermont Mutual, Andover, Liberty Mutual, Hanover, Providence Mutual and Foremost. Vermont Mutual can also write multi-family rentals of one to four units on a BOP when that fits the owner better.

Underwriters want the legal unit count. In older Byram and Chickahominy houses, attic and basement apartments are common. If a unit was added without permits, talk to us before you apply, because an unlisted unit can complicate a claim.

Five or more units: commercial habitational coverage

Once a building reaches five units, most carriers treat it as a commercial habitational risk. For Connecticut apartment buildings of five or more units, we place coverage with Vermont Mutual, Andover and Providence Mutual. Our Connecticut apartment building insurance guide covers what those carriers look for.

A habitational package or BOP usually brings together:

• Building coverage at replacement cost, with the limit set to the real rebuild cost, not the purchase price or the assessment.
• Business income / loss of rents, sized to the full rent roll and a realistic rebuild and re-occupancy period.
• General liability for common halls, stairs, lots, walks and any amenity space.
• Equipment breakdown for boilers, elevators and electrical gear, where offered.
• Building ordinance or law coverage for code upgrades after a loss.
• Common-area contents such as laundry and maintenance equipment.

Underwriters ask about construction type, sprinklers and alarms, roof and boiler age, electrical and plumbing updates, below-grade units and parking, vacancy and five years of losses. In Greenwich they’ll also ask what’s on the ground floor.

Mixed-use buildings: apartments over shops

A lot of Greenwich’s apartment stock sits above retail and offices, on Greenwich Avenue, Putnam Avenue, Route 1 and the small commercial strips in Cos Cob, Old Greenwich and Byram. Carriers look at the commercial tenants closely. A restaurant with a fryer, a nail salon or a dry cleaner is a different fire risk than an office or a boutique. Expect questions about the type of each commercial tenant, the share of the building’s square footage they use, hood and suppression systems for any cooking, and whether the commercial tenants carry their own liability with you as additional insured.

Our role is the habitational side. We write habitational BOPs for apartment buildings, including mixed-use buildings where carriers will accept the commercial occupancy. We don’t write the shop’s own business insurance. Commercial tenants should carry their own policies, and your leases should require it.

In Greenwich, the ground floor tenant can matter as much to an underwriter as the apartments above it.

New multifamily and affordable housing applications

Greenwich has seen new multifamily proposals in recent years, some filed under Connecticut’s affordable housing appeals law, CGS 8-30g. One example: a proposed 70-unit building at 200 Pemberwick Road and Comly Avenue, where the Pemberwick parcel is mostly in FEMA Zone AE and the Comly parcel is in Zone X, according to the town’s pre-application packet (Town of Greenwich).

For owners and developers, a new building raises different questions than an old one: builders risk during construction, then the switch to a habitational policy at completion, flood design and elevation, and how affordability restrictions affect the rent roll used for loss of rents. If you’re planning a project, talk to us early about the permanent coverage.

Flood: the Byram River, the coves and below-grade space

Greenwich’s flood exposure comes from two directions. On the coast, Byram, Old Greenwich, Riverside, Cos Cob Harbor, Indian Harbor and the Mianus River mouth are exposed to storm surge from Long Island Sound. Inland, the Byram River floods. The town’s 2021 hazard mitigation annex counts 117 repetitive loss properties, mostly residential and coastal, and identifies flooding along the Byram River between Route 1 and Comly Avenue in Pemberwick (WestCOG Greenwich annex).

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has studied the Byram River basin, where flooding has repeatedly hit Pemberwick and where the Route 1 bridges have been identified as contributing to flood risk (Town of Greenwich, Byram River feasibility study). For apartment owners, that means three situations:

• Coastal buildings near the coves and harbors: surge exposure, often in mapped high-risk zones where a lender will require flood coverage.
• Byram River and Pemberwick buildings: river flooding that can reach basements, boilers and parked cars without any coastal storm.
• Downtown and mid-town buildings with garages, storage or mechanical rooms below grade: heavy rain and drainage backups. Add water backup coverage; it’s excluded unless endorsed.

NFIP and private flood for Greenwich buildings

Landlord, homeowners and habitational policies exclude flood. New NFIP policies go through Selective, and a new NFIP policy usually takes effect after a 30-day waiting period, with some exceptions such as coverage a lender requires at closing. NFIP building limits are capped at $250,000 for a one- to four-family residential building and $500,000 for a residential building of five or more units, and the NFIP doesn’t pay loss of rents (FloodSmart).

Private flood can fill some of those gaps. We compare private flood carriers including Flow Flood, Neptune Flood, Beyond Floods, The Flood Insurance Agency, CatCoverage and Aon Edge. Some offer higher building limits, shorter waiting periods or loss of rents as an option. Look up the address on the FEMA Flood Map Service Center or our flood zone check, and see Greenwich and Westport flood insurance and Fairfield County flood insurance.

Building ordinance or law in Greenwich

When an older building is badly damaged, the rebuild has to meet today’s building, fire and electrical codes. A standard policy pays to repair what was there and may not pay for the upgrades. Ordinance or law coverage usually has three parts: the value of an undamaged portion that has to be torn down, the cost of demolishing it and the extra cost to build to current code.

It matters in Greenwich because more than two-thirds of the housing predates 1980, and because a substantially damaged building in a flood zone may have to be elevated or flood-proofed to meet floodplain rules. NFIP flood policies include Increased Cost of Compliance coverage of up to $30,000 for some floodplain compliance work after a flood (FEMA). On a multi-unit building, that rarely covers the whole cost.

Liability, umbrella and tenants

Apartment buildings carry more liability exposure than houses: shared stairs, laundry rooms, parking, snow and ice on walks and more people coming and going. On a one- to four-family owned personally, a personal umbrella is the usual way to raise limits. On a commercial package, we’ll review the package’s liability limit and how an umbrella or excess policy would sit above it. If the building is in an LLC, the LLC should be the named insured on every policy.

Your policy doesn’t cover tenants’ belongings. Requiring renters insurance in the lease protects them, and their liability coverage can respond when a tenant causes a fire or leak.

More pages for Greenwich and Fairfield County owners

For condo associations and unit owners, see Connecticut condo association insurance and Greenwich condo insurance. For your own home, see Greenwich homeowners insurance and our Greenwich, CT page. Own buildings nearby? See Stamford apartment building insurance and Norwalk apartment building insurance. Statewide, see Connecticut landlord insurance.

Get a quote for your Greenwich building

Greenwich apartment building insurance FAQs

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, Greenwich town (B25003, B25024, B25034), via Census Reporter
• WestCOG Hazard Mitigation Plan 2021-2026, Greenwich annex
• Town of Greenwich, Byram River Feasibility Study information
• Town of Greenwich, 200 Pemberwick Road pre-application
• FEMA FloodSmart (NFIP)
• FEMA, Increased Cost of Compliance
• FEMA Flood Map Service Center

General information for owners of apartment buildings in Greenwich. It is not a quote or legal advice. What a policy covers depends on its own wording and endorsements and on each carrier’s underwriting, and the public figures cited here may be revised.