Renting out your condo in California: what must your HO-6 cover?

Not fully. Many insurers adapt the HO-6, a model unit-owners form from the Insurance Services Office (ISO). Its 2011 edition insures "the unit where you reside," and a unit you rent out is no longer that.

The HO-6 covers what the association's policy usually does not: the alterations, fixtures and improvements inside your unit, and anything the association's rules make your responsibility. Renting the unit opens four gaps in the model form:

• Your belongings: not covered in a unit you regularly rent to others.
• Theft: not covered from the part of the unit you rent out.
• Your tenant's belongings: never covered, so the tenant needs a renters policy.
• Liability: rent above $2,000 a year can make the rental a business, outside the form's liability coverage.

It can, but each insurer writes its own. State regulators wrote in 2016 that coverage for renting may come as an add-on to a standard policy, or as a landlord policy.

They also warned that if a policy excludes business use and renting counts as a business, claims may be turned down, or the policy canceled or non-renewed.

The model HO-6 already pays lost rent in one case. Say covered damage leaves a rented part of the unit unfit to live in. The form pays that part's fair rental value, minus the costs that end while it sits empty.

Ask which add-on your insurer offers, and whether it gives back your belongings, theft coverage and liability for the rental.

Yes. State regulators wrote in 2016 that a landlord policy, known to insurers as a dwelling fire policy, can insure a condominium unit. It covers the unit's structure, fixtures and appliances.

It leaves more out by default. Your share of an association loss assessment is typically excluded, though it can often be added back. Liability and medical payments coverage are often missing too, and can be added.

When neither standard nor specialty insurers will write the unit, the FAIR Plan lists Condominium Unit Owners coverage for belongings and improvements. Its form covers improvements "whether rented to others or not" when you choose that option. A FAIR Plan policy pays nothing if your tenant or a visitor is hurt.

The association generally insures "the building structure and common areas, such as corridors and walls," the Department of Insurance says in its residential guide, revised January 2026. Your own policy picks up what the association's rules leave to you inside the unit.

Each year, California associations must send owners a summary of their property, liability, earthquake, flood and fidelity policies, with limits and deductibles (Civil Code Section 5300). By law, it warns that those policies "may not cover your property."

Loss assessment coverage pays your share when the association bills owners after a covered loss. The model HO-6 pays up to $1,000 for it, and not for earthquake. The Department suggests you check how yours treats earthquake.

Since January 1, 2021, Civil Code Section 4741 bars association rules that ban or unreasonably restrict renting a unit. An association also cannot cap rentals at fewer than 25 percent of its units.

The law does allow a ban on rentals "for a period of 30 days or less." Short stays carry an insurance risk too. The Insurance Information Institute said in March 2026 that they "can impact the shared master insurance policy."

The tenant insures their own things. The Department's guide says a renters policy covers the renter's "personal contents," plus loss of use and personal liability protection.

Ask for proof of a renters policy before the lease starts, and again at each renewal. Renting out a house sets out the same split between your policy and your tenant's, for a house.

On Casa's questionnaire, a condo rented to a tenant goes to a licensed agent, who searches it by hand. Whichever way you shop, put these questions to the insurer in writing:

• Does my policy cover the unit while a tenant lives there, and on which form?
• Is theft from the rented unit covered, and are my appliances and furniture there covered?
• Is a tenant's or visitor's injury covered, and what is the liability limit?
• Does the policy pay lost rent if covered damage makes the unit unlivable?
• How much loss assessment coverage do I have, and does it include earthquake?
• Does the association require owners who rent to carry anything else?