Condo Association Insurance in Hingham, MA

By Jonathan Merwin, Founder and CEO, Licensed Insurance Advisor

Hingham’s condominiums don’t look like condominiums. A Federal-era house on Main Street divided into three units. Six shingled townhouses around a shared drive off Route 3A. A cluster of detached homes on a private road where the “common area” is the road, the lawn and the stormwater basin. Hingham is a town of large single-family homes, and the condos that do exist are often small, quiet and run by their owners.

This page is for those owners: Hingham associations of roughly two to ten units that manage themselves, from antique conversions downtown to small townhouse groups and site condominiums. For the statewide rules on master policies, deductibles and Chapter 183A, see our guide to small condo association insurance in Massachusetts.

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Three kinds of small Hingham associations

The Census Bureau’s 2020-2024 American Community Survey shows how unusual Hingham’s housing is. Two-thirds of its roughly 10,100 homes are detached single-family houses, and only about 600 units are in two- to four-unit buildings. Another 600 or so are in buildings of five to 49 units, and the largest group of attached homes, about 1,600 units, is in buildings of 50 or more. Only about one in five occupied homes is rented.

Small associations in Hingham tend to fall into three groups, and each one insures differently:

Antique conversions

About 2,000 of Hingham’s homes were built before 1940, many of them along Main Street, North Street and the streets around the harbor. When one of those houses becomes a two- or three-unit condominium, the master policy is insuring a building with balloon or post-and-beam framing, plaster walls, wood windows and systems updated at different times by different owners. Rebuild cost is what drives the building limit, and for a house like that it’s usually much higher than a per-square-foot figure for new construction.

Townhouse groups

About 2,900 Hingham homes were built between 2000 and 2019. Small townhouse associations from that era and earlier usually have a master policy covering the whole structure, with shared roofs and exterior walls between units. That makes the master policy’s limit, its deductible and the unit boundaries in the master deed the key questions. Check whether the documents put decks, windows and doors on the association or on each owner.

Site condominiums

In a site condominium, each owner has a detached house and the association owns the land, the road and shared features. Some master deeds have the association insure every house. Others make each owner insure their own home on a homeowners policy, with the association insuring only the common land and its liability. Both work. What doesn’t work is an owner carrying an HO-6 when the documents require them to insure the whole house, or an association paying for building coverage it doesn’t need. Read the insurance section of the master deed before anything else.

What the master policy should cover

For Massachusetts condo associations, we place master policies with Safety Insurance, Concord Group, Vermont Mutual, Andover Companies and Providence Mutual. For a small Hingham association, the package usually includes:

• Building coverage at replacement cost where the documents require the association to insure the structures, with the limit set to the real rebuild cost of the buildings as they are.
• General liability for the private road, walks, shared driveway, landscaping and any dock, beach access or pond.
• Building ordinance or law coverage for older buildings and for buildings in flood zones that may need to meet floodplain rules after a big loss.
• Directors and officers (D&O) liability for the trustees, who often hire contractors for snow, landscaping and road work.
• Fidelity coverage for the association’s money. It’s required by statute only above ten units, but a small association with a road reserve has real money to protect.

Liability limits deserve attention in a town like Hingham. Under Chapter 183A, Section 13, if a claim against the association exhausts common funds, owners can be liable for the balance by percentage interest. In a five-unit association that’s a one-fifth share each. Many small associations add an umbrella above the package’s liability limit.

In a Hingham site condo, the first question isn’t the price of the master policy. It’s whether the master deed makes the association insure the houses at all.

Hingham Harbor, Route 3A and flood

Hingham’s downtown sits at the head of Hingham Harbor, and the Inner Harbor shoreline runs right along Route 3A and Summer Street. The town’s 2024 harbor master plan says the majority of the Inner Harbor is in a VE (velocity) or AE flood zone, both special flood hazard areas (Hingham Harbor Master Plan 2024). A 2024 state review of the town’s waterfront project listed base flood elevations of 12 to 14 feet (NAVD) in VE zones and 10 to 11 feet in AE zones (MA EEA comment letter).

The town is pursuing the Hingham Waterfront Resilience Project along about six-tenths of a mile of the Inner Harbor shoreline. It’s designed to eliminate existing storm tide pathways through 2050, with room to adapt for 100-year flood conditions projected for 2070, using elevated seawalls and revetments, a dune and a self-regulating tide gate (Town of Hingham project narrative). It isn’t finished, and it doesn’t cover every stretch of Hingham’s coast, which also includes Broad Cove, Crow Point and the Weir River side near Hull.

Hingham’s wetland regulations allow existing structures in those harbor zones to be rebuilt with flood-resistant construction, but prohibit new structures (Harbor Master Plan). For an association, that’s a reason to look closely at ordinance or law coverage and at how a rebuild would actually work.

Flood options for an association

• NFIP Residential Condominium Building Association Policy (RCBAP). Insures the building, units and common areas under one policy, capped at $250,000 per unit or replacement cost, whichever is lower (FloodSmart). New NFIP policies go through Selective and usually take effect after a 30-day wait.
• Private flood. We can compare Flow Flood, Neptune Flood, Beyond Floods, The Flood Insurance Agency, CatCoverage and Aon Edge for higher limits or different terms.
• Site condos. Where owners insure their own houses, each owner usually needs their own flood policy too.

Look up your buildings on the FEMA Flood Map Service Center or our flood zone check. For coastal homes generally, see coastal home insurance in Massachusetts.

Historic districts and older buildings

Hingham’s Historic Districts Commission reviews exterior alterations, renovations and new construction in the town’s local historic districts, issuing certificates of appropriateness (Town of Hingham). The Lincoln Extension (Phase II) Historic District, adopted in 1989, covers the western side of the Inner Harbor and contains more than a hundred historic resources, and some harbor-area properties outside it fall under the town’s demolition delay bylaw (Harbor Master Plan).

For an association in one of those buildings, repairs may need to match historic materials and go through review, which adds cost and time. Make sure the building limit reflects that, and that loss of use for owners and loss of rents for any rented units are set for a realistic repair period.

Winter, ice and water in Hingham buildings

The claims we see most in small New England associations are water claims: ice dams on older roofs, frozen pipes in exterior walls, and failed supply lines in an upstairs unit. Hingham’s townhouses and conversions share roofs and walls, so one leak can reach several units. The by-laws decide who pays the master deductible. Each owner’s HO-6 should include loss assessment coverage set with that deductible in mind. Water backup from sewers or drains is excluded unless added by endorsement, and it’s worth considering for units with finished basements.

More for Hingham and South Shore owners

For your own home, auto and umbrella, see our Hingham, MA insurance page. Nearby, see Cohasset, Hull, Scituate and Duxbury. For larger associations, see Massachusetts condo association insurance. If you own a unit in a two-family condominium, see Massachusetts condex insurance.

Get a quote for your Hingham association

Hingham condo association insurance FAQs

Sources

• U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2020-2024 5-year, Hingham town (B25024, B25034, B25077, B25003), via Census Reporter
• Town of Hingham, Master Plan for Hingham Harbor (2024)
• Town of Hingham, Waterfront Resilience Project narrative
• Massachusetts EEA, comment letter on the Hingham Waterfront Resiliency Project (Sept. 2024)
• Town of Hingham, Historic Preservation
• M.G.L. c. 183A, § 13
• FEMA FloodSmart (NFIP)
• FEMA Flood Map Service Center

General information for condominium associations in Hingham, Massachusetts. It is not a quote or legal advice. Your master deed and by-laws control, what a policy covers depends on its own wording and each carrier’s underwriting, and the public figures cited here may be revised.