Ordinance or Law Coverage
An insurance endorsement that covers the additional cost of bringing a damaged building up to current building code requirements during a covered repair, a gap a standard policy leaves open, since it otherwise only pays to restore a building to its original, possibly now-outdated condition.
Why it matters
A building damaged badly enough to require rebuilding a significant portion of it often has to meet current code in that rebuilt area, even if the rest of the building was legally built to an older standard; without ordinance or law coverage, that code-driven cost gap falls entirely on the property owner.
On a real project
A fire severely damages one floor of an older building, and current code requires the rebuilt floor to include upgraded fire-rated construction the original floor never had. The property's ordinance or law coverage pays for that additional code-required cost, which a standard policy wouldn't have covered on its own.
Who this matters most to
An Insurance Adjuster identifies when code-driven upgrades trigger this specific coverage rather than treating them as a standard repair cost. A Restoration Project Manager coordinates with the local building department to determine exactly which upgrades are actually code-required versus optional.
Where this goes wrong
A property owner's building sustains fire damage requiring code-mandated electrical upgrades during reconstruction, but their policy has no ordinance or law coverage. The insurer pays only to restore the original electrical configuration, leaving the property owner to cover the entire cost of the code-required upgrade out of pocket.