Shopping center insurance in Texas

What a Texas underwriter asks first

• Roof age and typeThe year of the last full replacement, the membrane or metal system, and whether rooftop units have hail guards. On a one-story center the roof is most of the hail exposure.
• Wind and hail deductibleUsually stated separately from the all-other-perils deductible, often as a percentage. The Texas Department of Insurance reminds buyers that a percentage deductible has to be translated into what you would actually pay.
• Coast or inlandFourteen coastal counties and a slice of Harris County are served by the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association for wind and hail. Everywhere else, wind stays in the regular property policy.
• Freeze protectionSprinkler risers, vacant bays and exposed plumbing after the February 2021 freeze.
• Tenant mixRestaurants, bars, vape shops, gyms, clinics and late-night uses change both the fire and the liability picture.
• Parking lot and common areasLighting, cameras, patrols and the incident history of the property.

How the coverage is built is the same as in any state (how shopping center programs are put together). What follows is what changes because the building is in Texas.

Hail, wind and how the roof is valued

The big Texas metros have each had a defining hailstorm. The National Weather Service office in Fort Worth still calls the May 5, 1995 storm that crossed Tarrant and Dallas counties one of the costliest hailstorms in history, with hail up to the size of softballs. On April 11, 2016 a single supercell tracked across North Texas and hit Wylie, in Collin County, hard enough that the Weather Service reported 80 percent of homes there were affected. One night later a storm laid a swath of very large hail just north of downtown San Antonio, with stones up to 4.5 inches in diameter. The Weather Service notes these storms can come in any month but are most common in spring.

That history is why Texas property quotes are read from the roof down:

• The deductible. A wind and hail deductible written as a percentage normally applies to the insured value, not to the size of the loss. On a center with several buildings, ask whether it applies per building or per location.
• Replacement cost or actual cash value. The state’s commercial property guide explains that a policy can pay replacement cost, actual cash value, or a mix of both. On older roofs insurers often offer the mix: replacement cost on the building, depreciated value on the roof.
• Cosmetic damage. Some forms exclude dents in metal roofing and equipment that do not cause leaks.
• Who pays the deductible. The Texas Department of Insurance says plainly that a contractor may not waive or absorb a policy deductible, and the insurer can ask for proof that it was paid. In a triple-net center, the lease should say how a large wind and hail deductible is shared with tenants.

Related: Texas hail deductibles and roof valuation.

Houston and the coast: windstorm and flood are separate questions

The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association (TWIA) was created by the Legislature in 1971 as the insurer of last resort for wind and hail on the coast. It covers commercial as well as residential property, but only for wind and hail, and only inside the area the Insurance Commissioner has designated: all 14 first-tier coastal counties, among them Galveston, Brazoria, Chambers, Jefferson, Nueces and Cameron, plus the parts of Harris County inside the city limits of La Porte, Morgan’s Point, Pasadena, Seabrook and Shore Acres that lie east of Highway 146.

• Eligibility. At least one private insurer must have declined the wind coverage, and the building has to be in insurable condition.
• Windstorm certificates. TWIA requires a certificate of compliance (the WPI-8 family) for structures built, altered, remodeled, enlarged or repaired on or after January 1, 1988. A missing certificate for past roof work can stall a coastal placement.
• Timing. The Department of Insurance warns that TWIA will not sell a policy while a hurricane is in the Gulf.
• The rest of the policy. Because TWIA pays only wind and hail, fire, theft, water damage, liability and usually loss of rents sit on a companion policy.

A center in most of Houston, and anywhere in Dallas–Fort Worth, San Antonio or Austin, is outside the TWIA area, so wind and hail are negotiated with the property insurer. More on the association: TWIA explained.

Flood is its own policy everywhere in the state. The Department of Insurance’s guide for businesses says most commercial property policies do not cover flooding, that flood coverage comes from the National Flood Insurance Program or a private flood insurer, and that a new flood policy generally has a 30-day waiting period. Its home guide adds that more than half of the homes flooded by Hurricane Harvey were outside designated flood zones; I quote flood on Houston-area centers whatever the map says.

What the February 2021 freeze changed

From February 11 to 19, 2021, most of Texas sat below freezing with sustained or rotating power outages. The Texas Department of Insurance collected claim data on the event: as of June 30, 2022, insurers had reported 511,473 claims, with damage coming from frozen pipes, the weight of ice and snow, fallen limbs and related causes. Sixteen months after the storm, about 13.4 percent of commercial property claims were still open, against about 1.2 percent of residential claims. The Department notes that commercial claims are more complex and take longer to settle.

For a retail center that shows up as underwriting questions:

• Vacant bays. Is heat kept on, is water shut off or drained, and how often does someone walk the space? Many policies restrict water and freeze coverage in vacant or unheated space.
• Sprinkler risers and lines in attics, canopies and exterior closets.
• Loss of rents. A long, contested claim is a long rent interruption, so the limit and the period of restoration deserve as much attention as the building limit. How business interruption works.

Crime on the property and what Texas courts ask

Texas has no blanket rule making a landlord answer for crimes committed by strangers. In Trammell Crow Central Texas, Ltd. v. Gutierrez (2008), a case about a shooting at the Quarry Market center in San Antonio, the Texas Supreme Court restated the rule it set out in Timberwalk Apartments v. Cain (1998): a person generally has no duty to protect others from third-party criminal acts, but one who controls the premises must use ordinary care to protect invitees when he knows or has reason to know of an unreasonable and foreseeable risk of harm. Foreseeability is weighed from prior crimes on or near the property using five factors: proximity, publicity, recency, frequency and similarity.

In that case 227 crimes had been reported at the center in two years, ten of them violent, and the court still held the property manager owed no duty for that attack. A liability underwriter looks at the same things a court would:

• Who controls security: the owner, the property manager, an anchor tenant or a guard company, and what the contracts say.
• The incident log and police calls for the address.
• Lighting, cameras and patrol hours, especially where tenants stay open late.
• Exclusions. Some liability forms offered on retail carry assault and battery or firearms exclusions or sublimits. I read them to you before you choose, and an umbrella has to follow the same terms to be useful.

Tenant mix: the owner’s policy and the tenants’ policies

The owner’s program covers the shell, the common areas, loss of rents and the owner’s liability; it is often written as lessor’s risk. Each tenant carries its own liability, contents and improvements, and names the owner as additional insured. In Texas I look closely at three things:

• Cooking tenants. Hood and duct cleaning, suppression system service tags, and grease on the roof membrane.
• Alcohol and late hours. Bars, lounges and game rooms should carry liquor liability and show it on the certificate.
• The lease. Who insures the storefront glass, the rooftop units and tenant build-outs, and whether tenants waive subrogation.

What to send me

• Address or addresses, year built, square footage and construction for each building.
• Roof details: type, year replaced, any hail claims and repairs, and photos if you have them.
• Tenant schedule with uses, lease type, vacancies and how vacant bays are protected in winter.
• Current declarations pages, including the wind and hail deductible and any roof valuation endorsement.
• Five years of loss runs.
• Coastal properties: windstorm certificates of compliance and any flood elevation certificate.
• Security: lighting, cameras, patrol contract and the incident log.

Common questions

General information about insuring shopping centers and strip malls in Texas as of November 2026, not legal advice. Windstorm association eligibility, deductibles, policy forms and case law change; confirm coverage terms on your own policy, your property’s status with the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association, and your duties as an owner with Texas counsel. Coverage depends on underwriting and the terms, conditions and exclusions of the policy actually issued.