Missouri HOA and condo insurance, where an 80 percent actual-cash-value floor meets New Madrid earthquake exposure. The statutory minimum is below the lender standard, and the seismic question sits on top of it

The Kansas City and St. Louis metros drive the Missouri community-association market, with a mix of condominiums, townhomes, and planned communities carrying the standard valuation-basis and warrantability exposure. Older mid-rise and converted-loft condominium stock in the urban cores adds ordinance-or-law and equipment-breakdown relevance.

Southeastern Missouri and the broader Mississippi River corridor sit inside the New Madrid Seismic Zone, which gives associations there a catastrophe exposure that does not exist for their peers in the northwest of the state. Whether an association buys earthquake coverage, and at what deductible, becomes a real board conversation rather than a footnote.

Away from the seismic zone, Missouri is a moderate catastrophe environment, and the property conversation centers on replacement-cost adequacy, severe convective storm and hail, and winter freeze and water losses rather than a dominant coastal peril. The recurring gap is a condominium program written to the 80 percent actual-cash-value floor rather than to full replacement cost, which surfaces at the worst possible time, at a claim or a unit sale.

The distinctive Missouri item is earthquake. It is excluded from the standard master policy and must be added by endorsement or placed separately, usually with a percentage deductible that can be large on a multibuilding association. Take-up has fallen over the past decade even as availability has improved, per the Missouri Department of Commerce and Insurance, so many boards in the exposed counties are carrying the seismic risk without knowing it. Placement runs through the dedicated community-association markets, and the earthquake and loss-assessment pieces should be quoted deliberately, not defaulted out.