What Is Common Areas Insurance in Türkiye?

What Does Common Areas Insurance Actually Cover?

Common areas insurance protects the parts of an apartment block or gated community that flat owners use jointly. Turkish regulation publishes no general conditions under that name: the policy is built on the Fire Insurance General Conditions and completed with liability covers. Two buildings can hold policies with the same title and very different protection.

What counts as a common part is fixed by statute, not by the insurer. Article 4 of Law No. 634, the Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu (Condominium Law), allows common parts to be defined by agreement, then lists those treated as common in every case. When cover is disputed, that article and the management plan are read before the policy wording.

• Foundations, main walls, and the beams, columns and shear walls of the load-bearing system
• Party walls between flats, ceilings and floors, courtyards
• Main entrance doors, halls, staircases, lifts, landings, corridors
• General toilets and washbasins there, caretaker flats or rooms
• Shared laundry and drying areas, coal stores and garages
• Boiler rooms, wells and cisterns, water tanks, shelters
• Sewerage, heating, water, gas and electrical installations outside a flat, shared networks and aerials
• Roofs, chimneys, roof terraces, rainwater gutters, fire escape stairs

Is the Cover Compulsory in Türkiye?

The law does not compel this policy, but it does say who decides. Under Article 21 of the Condominium Law, insuring the building for a value determined by the general assembly may be resolved by that assembly. The decision sits with the owners, not the manager alone.

Article 20 allocates the cost: owners contribute to the premiums and to the maintenance, protection, strengthening and repair costs of all common parts in proportion to their land share. Caretaker and gardener costs are shared equally, premiums are not, and that gap drives many service-charge disputes.

The same law directs the proceeds. Where only part of the common areas or a few flats are damaged, the sum insured is spent on repairing them in proportion to land shares, not distributed as income.

Earthquake sits outside this structure. DASK, the compulsory earthquake cover under Law No. 6305, protects structural elements including staircases, lifts, landings, corridors, roofs and chimneys, but is issued per flat, so a manager cannot buy it collectively; see our DASK cover page.

Where Does the Manager's Responsibility Begin?

Article 38 states the standard in a single line: the manager is liable to the flat owners exactly as an agent is. Putting the insurance decision to the assembly, carrying out the resolution and keeping the policy in force are judged against it.

Article 35 lists the duties. Sub-paragraph (c) names having the building insured as a duty in its own right. Sub-paragraph (l), added in 2015, requires monthly maintenance and annual inspections of the lifts under the relevant technical regulations, with the fees paid.

Having no manager does not remove the duty. Article 34 makes an appointment compulsory from eight flats upwards; if the conditions are met and none is made, the owners are jointly responsible for the Article 35 tasks.

Staff are a separate heading. Article 3 of the Regulation on Residential Caretakers defines the employer as the owner or co-owners, the manager as the employer's representative, and the workplace as the residence with its flats, common areas, annexes and installations. In an accident at work the building answers as employer, which makes employer's liability cover a heading of its own.

Which Policy Answers Which Risk?

The core of the policy is fire. Article A.1 of the Fire Insurance General Conditions indemnifies only direct material damage from fire, lightning, explosion, and the smoke, steam and heat that follow them. Flood, storm, snow load and escape of water enter the cover only by supplementary agreement under Article A.3.

One further distinction matters. Fixed installations, lifts and escalators, lightning conductors and aerials, with foundations and retaining walls, fall within the sum insured unless agreed otherwise. Garden and boundary walls, terraces, fountains, cisterns and pools are within it only if stated in the policy. The assumption that a communal pool is covered because it is a common area breaks here.

Which Policy Responds to a Lift Accident?

The Lift Accidents Third Party Liability Insurance General Conditions took effect on 1 October 1984, and the first article draws the boundary at once: cover applies to lifts under permanent maintenance by contract whose make, type, mode of use, carrying capacity and address are stated in the policy. The maintenance contract is a precondition, not paperwork.

That matches the technical regulation. Article 14 of the Regulation on Lift Operation and Maintenance makes the building responsible party liable for signing a maintenance contract with the installer or its authorised service, having the work carried out and paying the fee.

The most common misunderstanding is that the maintenance company's insurance also protects the building. Article 13 requires the authorised service to hold professional liability cover for claims arising from its own errors or omissions. That policy answers for the service company, not the building.

The liability policy looks at a narrow field. Article 2 excludes material loss caused by fire, lightning, explosion, flood, earthquake or an external cause. Damage to the lift car in a fire belongs to the fire cover; treating the two as interchangeable leaves a gap that appears only on the day of a claim. See our liability insurance page.

A Checklist Before the Policy Is Placed

Most arguments about a common areas policy are settled at quotation stage, not on the day of a loss. The list below is the minimum a manager can put before the assembly.

Getting the premium into the budget is a separate step. Article 37, as amended by Law No. 7579 of 7 May 2026, provides that the operating budget is approved by the general assembly, and where none exists the manager prepares a provisional one without delay. Once the premium sits there it becomes collectable instead of forgotten.

• Reconcile the common parts list with the management plan and Article 4
• Name garden and boundary walls, terraces, fountains, cisterns and pools in the policy
• Set the sum insured on reinstatement value; underinsurance reduces the claim proportionally
• Ask expressly for flood, escape of water, storm and snow load
• Keep the lift maintenance contract in force and matching the policy details
• Assess employer's liability separately for caretakers and staff
• Enter the premium in the operating budget as a line item

Where We Come In as an Agency

RYL Sigorta Aracılık Hizmetleri Limited Şirketi is an insurance agency. Our work is to map the management plan and the common parts list onto the policy wording, prepare quotations from the insurance companies we act for, and set out the differences in cover in writing. The policy is issued by the insurance company, and any claim payment is made by it.

To have the common areas cover of the building you manage reviewed, reach us through the quotation form.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Condominium Law No. 634 (Kat Mülkiyeti Kanunu)
• Fire Insurance General Conditions — SEDDK
• Lift Accidents Third Party Liability Insurance General Conditions — SEDDK
• Regulation on Lift Operation and Maintenance
• Regulation on Residential Caretakers
• Compulsory Earthquake Insurance General Conditions — DASK

This article is for information only; the scope of cover is set by the policy’s specific and general terms.