Master Deductible Loss Assessment (HO-6 $1,000 Sublimit)
What this clause says
This policy is endorsed to provide loss assessment coverage for the insured unit owner's share of an assessment charged during the policy period by the Association, subject to the loss assessment limit shown in the declarations; provided that the amount of coverage for an assessment made as a result of a deductible under the Association's master policy shall not exceed $1,000 for any one loss, regardless of the number of assessments.
What this means in plain English
When the master policy pays a common-element loss, the association still owes the master deductible, and its governing documents usually let the board recover that deductible from unit owners as a special assessment. Whether and how the deductible is charged back is set by the recorded declaration and bylaws, backed by the association's statutory power to levy assessments (in California, the Davis-Stirling assessment provisions at Civil Code section 5600 and following, not the insurance sections). The catch sits on the owner side: the standard ISO loss assessment endorsement, HO 04 35, caps the portion of any assessment that is attributable to the master-policy deductible at $1,000 for any one loss, no matter how high that deductible is or how large the owner's overall loss assessment limit. So an owner can carry a $50,000 loss assessment limit and still recover only $1,000 toward a deductible pass-through under the unedited form.
What it means for an HOA board
The board controls one side of this and owners control the other, and the two do not line up by default. The declaration and the assessment authority behind it decide how much of the master deductible each owner is charged after a loss, but the standard HO 04 35 endorsement only pays $1,000 of that deductible share back to the owner, even when the owner's loss assessment limit is much larger. On a policy with a $10,000 to $50,000 all-perils deductible, or a percentage wind deductible worth far more, that $1,000 sublimit leaves owners funding most of the pass-through out of pocket, and the uncollectible remainder circles back to the association budget. Publish the master deductible in dollars, tell owners the standard form only covers $1,000 of a deductible assessment, and point them to the carriers that will raise that sublimit so their HO-6 actually matches the exposure the governing documents can assess them for.
Program notes
The $1,000 deductible-assessment cap is a feature of the unedited ISO HO 04 35 form, not a market-wide hard limit. Several unit-owner markets will raise the deductible-assessment sublimit on request, sometimes to match the full loss assessment limit, for little or no added premium. This is an owner-education and endorsement-shopping item; the board's job is to surface the master deductible figure so owners know how far above $1,000 they need to buy.
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