Some Jamaican Strata Corporations Decided Insurance Was Too Expensive. So They Went Without

• Not all 160 registered strata corporations carried insurance
• Some declared intent to self-insure over cost concerns
• The regulator called the practice inadvisable but technically legal
• Non-payment of maintenance fees remained the most common complaint

Not all of Jamaica’s 160 registered strata corporations carried insurance at the time, according to the Strata Corporations Commission, with some having formally declared their intention to self-insure instead, citing the high price attached to conventional coverage rather than simply lapsing on payment.

Commission representative Graham was candid about the risk that decision carries, without disputing the corporations’ legal right to make it. I don’t think it’s advisable. But if the decision is unanimous, this is permissible, he said, a regulatory stance that allows self-insurance to proceed as long as every owner in the corporation has formally consented to accepting the risk collectively.

Graham identified non-payment of maintenance fees as the single most prevalent complaint the commission continued to receive, specifically tied to the payment of common bills including electricity and water utilities, the same collections failure this publication has documented recurring across multiple Jamaican strata disputes over subsequent years, at properties from unnamed complexes struggling with 85 percent delinquency to the later, more dramatic Sunshine Village dispute in Negril.

Real Estate Board general manager Sandra Watson, addressing the broader compliance picture, acknowledged how slowly attitudes were shifting even with active outreach under way. We have attended many strata meetings and made many presentations to heighten awareness, she said. I think that change is occurring, it’s just that change is very difficult for Jamaicans, an assessment that, on the pattern this publication has traced through subsequent strata governance failures, proved more accurate as a long-term diagnosis than as a sign of imminent improvement.

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