How is the self-insurance fund's required amount calculated?

It is the highest deductible — not the sum — among policies that are neither archived, nor expired, nor ticked as excluded, capped at $100,000. A policy with no expiry date counts as active, and a policy is active through its expiry day inclusive.

My earthquake policy is pushing the required amount up. Why?

Because the exclusion is not inferred from the policy type: it is a checkbox on the policy record. Until it is ticked, that deductible counts. Open the policy and tick the exclusion.

The required amount shows « — ». Does that mean zero?

No, it means unknown. While no active policy carries a deductible there is nothing to measure, so CondoAide shows a dash rather than a zero that would read as a measurement.

Why does the certificate say something different from the fund page?

Because the $100,000 cap is a display cap. The certificate compares the fund against your policies' real deductible, uncapped. A syndicate whose deductible reaches $150,000 can therefore read « Minimum met » on the fund page at $100,000 while the certificate does not treat the obligation as satisfied.

The required amount of the self-insurance fund

The self-insurance fund exists to pay the syndicate's insurance deductibles (art. 1071.1 CCQ), and the law wants it liquid and available in the short term. Its size therefore follows from your policies — but the derivation has a few subtleties that explain most of the surprises.

The rule

The Required Amount is the highest deductible, not their sum, among policies meeting three conditions:

not archived;
not expired — a policy counts through its expiry day inclusive, and a policy with no expiry date counts as active;
not ticked as excluded from the self-insurance fund.

The result is then capped at $100,000.

If you entered an amount by hand, that one wins over the whole calculation: it is what the card shows.

The exclusion is not automatic

This is the most frequent cause of an inflated required amount, and it surprises everyone.

CondoAide does not infer that a policy covers earthquake or flood from its type. The exclusion is a checkbox on the policy record, unticked by default. An earthquake policy entered without ticking it therefore raises the required amount, exactly like any other.

If your required amount looks too large: open your policies one by one and check the box. Excluded policies then carry an "Excluded" marker in the table.

What the policy table shows — and does not

The table lists all your non-archived policies, expired ones included, and it does not mark them as expired. A lapsed policy therefore keeps displaying its deductible, while no longer counting toward the calculation.

In other words: the table is the list of your policies, not the list of the ones that set the amount. If a figure looks inconsistent, check the expiry dates first.

The $100,000 cap is for display only

This is the subtlety that matters most, because it produces two different numbers on two screens.

The fund page caps the required amount at $100,000. The syndicate certificate compares against the real deductible, uncapped, because what it reports is the insurance obligation itself.

In practice: a syndicate whose highest deductible is $150,000 will see "Minimum met" on the fund page as soon as it holds $100,000, while the certificate will not treat the obligation as satisfied. This is not the software contradicting itself — they answer two different questions — but it is better to know before a notary points it out.

The annual contribution

From the required amount and the current balance, CondoAide proposes an annual contribution, split according to the shares of the common expenses:

if the fund holds half or less of the required amount, the proposed contribution is half the required amount;
otherwise it is simply the shortfall.