Lisbon, Feb. 18, 2025 (Lusa) - The Portuguese Association of Condominium Managers and Administrators (Apegac) warned on Tuesday of the lack of seismic risk cover in condominium building insurance, arguing to make it compulsory in the country's most susceptible regions.

In an interview with the Lusa news agency, the president of Apegac explained that coverage for seismic phenomena, the only coverage that could cover damage caused by an earthquake like the one that happened on Monday in Portugal, "is not part of the basic coverage" of multi-risk insurance policies, "often because the coverage is expensive, rising the price of the complete policy".

"In Portugal, we have more than three million family homes, and those that have taken out cover for seismic phenomena don't even reach half a million, making it clear that there is little awareness of prevention," said Vítor Amaral.

According to the association, this "is a mistake because Portugal has some regions with a high risk of an earthquake occurring at any time", and "buildings built before the 1980s are not prepared for larger quakes".

With this in mind, and at a time when "the government is working on changing and improving housing policies," Apegac is advocating changes to article 1429 of the Civil Code, approved in 1966, to make multi-risk insurance compulsory throughout the country and to include compulsory cover for seismic phenomena in the regions with the highest risk of these situations occurring.

He explained that Article 1429 of the Civil Code currently only stipulates that insurance against the risk of fire in the building is compulsory, so this is "the only risk that condominium owners can be required to take out with an insurance company".

Given the "non-conformity" of this situation "with the current construction reality and with existing accidents in other areas, such as storms, floods, water damage, burst pipes, among others", the so-called multi-risk insurance has since become widespread.

The association said that "this reassures most of the five million or so Portuguese who live in condominiums (not to mention the other five million who live in individual properties) because they think that multi-risk insurance covers all risks", but the fact is that "this is not the case".

This is because, in most insurance companies, multi-risk insurance "has a very narrow range of basic covers, such as fire, storms, floods and little else", excluding "important covers, as we know from the claims inventories, such as burst pipes, aesthetic damage, electrical risks, among others".

At the same time, there is a clear "tendency, which is greater the more difficult it is for families to manage their family budgets, to take out the cheapest insurance without taking care to check the cover, excesses and exclusions, for example".

Warning of the potentially serious human and natural consequences of seismic phenomena, the president of Apegac advises taking out multi-risk insurance with the respective cover, "even if we know that this causes a greater effort in managing the family budget".

Re-elected at the end of last year, Apegac's board has kept "a 20-year struggle" as a priority: The regulation of the condominium management sector, for which there is currently "no requirement other than arriving at the Tax Office and declaring the start of activity, even without having an establishment open to the public".

"If it's an activity that people find difficult to trust, it would be important for the legislator to regulate and impose rules and sanctions on those who don't comply," says Vítor Amaral, acknowledging that “regulation wouldn't solve the problem of bad examples”, but it would be “a sieve that would give consumers some security”.

In addition, the association's current board advocates an end to the duplication of insurance in the common parts of buildings, which it says is "absolutely unacceptable" and only "contribute[s], unfairly and unnecessarily, to enriching insurers".

He believes that legislation should require condominium owners to obtain insurance through the respective administration.

"In other words," he explains, "there should be no individual insurance, but rather a single insurance, eliminating this issue of duplicate insurance.

PD/ADB // ADB.

Lusa