What is single-entity coverage on a condo master policy?

Single-entity coverage is one of the three baskets a condominium master property policy can sit in, and it is the middle one. It insures the building structure and the common elements, and it reaches inside each unit far enough to cover the interior installations as the developer originally built them: the drywall, the original flooring, the builder-grade cabinets and countertops, the original fixtures. Where it stops is upgrades. Anything an owner installed after the original build is outside the master policy's reach on this basis.

The name describes the coverage mechanics. The master policy treats the entire building, interiors included, as a single insurable entity valued at its original installed condition, rather than drawing a line at the perimeter surfaces and leaving each interior to its owner. Practitioners also call this original-specifications coverage, because the reference point is the building as delivered under the original plans and specifications, not the unit as it sits today after years of renovations.

The defining feature of single-entity, and the source of most confusion around it, is the word original. After a covered fire or water loss, the master policy pays to restore the interior to the standard the developer installed, not to the standard an owner may have upgraded to since. If a unit was delivered with builder-grade laminate counters and vinyl flooring, and a later owner installed stone and hardwood, a single-entity policy rebuilds to the laminate-and-vinyl baseline. The difference between the original installation and the upgrade, the improvements and betterments, is the owner's to insure.

Florida Statute 718.111(11) draws essentially this line in its insurance provision, framing the association's obligation around the property as originally installed or replacement of like kind and quality, while making certain interior finishes and owner upgrades, floor and wall and ceiling coverings, built-in cabinets and countertops, and similar items, the unit owner's responsibility. That statutory carve-out is one of the cleanest illustrations of exactly where single-entity coverage stops, though the specific recorded declaration still governs the detail for any given community.

Single-entity is easiest to understand by its neighbors. Bare-walls, the narrowest basis, stops at the unfinished interior surfaces of the perimeter walls, floors, and ceilings, leaving everything inward of the drywall, finishes and all, to the unit owner. All-in, the broadest, follows the interior all the way to current condition, picking up fixtures and improvements including many owner upgrades. Single-entity lands in the middle: it covers the original interior installations that bare-walls excludes, but not the upgrades that all-in would reach.

The premium ordering tracks the coverage ordering. The dedicated community-association markets price single-entity above bare-walls and below all-in, because each step inward picks up more interior exposure. That is why confirming the basis has to come before comparing premiums between programs. A single-entity quote and an all-in quote are not describing the same coverage, so a raw premium comparison between them is meaningless until the basis is matched.

On a single-entity master policy, the unit owner's HO-6 policy still has real work to do, and the piece unique to this basis is betterments and improvements. The HO-6 needs a dwelling and improvements limit sized to the gap between the developer's original installation and whatever the current owner has since upgraded to. An owner who has renovated heavily needs more of this coverage than one living in an unrenovated original unit, even in the same building under the same master policy.

Beyond betterments, the HO-6 carries the pieces no master basis reaches: personal property, loss of use or additional living expense during repairs, personal liability, and loss assessment coverage. Loss assessment is the one owners most often leave at a low default; it pays the owner's share of a special assessment the association levies after a covered common-element loss, including a passed-through master-policy deductible, which on a percentage wind or hurricane deductible can be a large per-unit number. A board that publishes the master deductible in dollars lets each owner size that endorsement to the actual exposure.

The recorded declaration, not the policy, is supposed to control which basis applies, and the master policy is meant to follow it. So confirmation is a two-document exercise: pull the recorded declaration and read its insurance article to see which basis it requires, then read the valuation language on the current master policy, and confirm the two describe the same reach. Do not rely on the declarations-page summary or the prior year's renewal file alone, since a one-line summary rarely states the basis with precision.

The two documents drift apart more often than boards expect. A declaration amended after a major renovation project or a developer turnover can shift the required basis while the master policy renews on autopilot against the old one. The mismatch is invisible until there is a loss, at which point the adjuster pays against whatever basis the policy actually carries, regardless of what the declaration says the owners were promised. Reconfirm the match at every renewal, and once confirmed, tell owners in writing that the policy is single-entity so they size their HO-6 betterments and loss assessment limits to the gap this basis leaves rather than guessing.