Comparison
condo.insure vs. Mackoul Building Guard
Both track whether unit owners carry the insurance your declaration requires. Building Guard is a monitoring service delivered by Mackoul's staff — an established insurance agency doing the work for you. condo.insure is software you run yourself, with published per-unit pricing and AI that reads each declaration page. The right answer depends on whether you want it handled or want to see it.
We make condo.insure, so treat this as a vendor's comparison and verify anything that matters. We have tried to be accurate rather than flattering: every statement about Mackoul below quotes or paraphrases their own site with a source link, and there is a section on where they are the better choice. We have deliberately made no claim about their price, because they don't publish one.
Also worth stating plainly: condo.insure is connected to a family insurance agency, so "software company vs. insurance broker" is not a clean line for us either.
Who they are
Mackoul Risk Solutions describes itself as "an independent insurance agency" specializing in real estate, business, commercial and personal insurance, "insurance monitoring," and employee benefits.[1] It was founded in 1987, lists 64 employees, and states it is "proudly insuring over 1,900 community associations."[2] Offices are in Long Beach NY, Morristown NJ and Chicago IL, serving "clients throughout the country."
Building Guard is their insurance-monitoring program, run on its own site and phone line.[3] It covers "the owners, renters, and commercial occupants in your building or association" using, in their words, "our specialized software and dedicated department."[3]
condo.insure is software for condominium boards and property management firms, built Florida-first around HO-6 compliance. Owners submit by forwarding the email their insurer already sent; AI extracts the insurer, policy number, expiration date and coverage limits and checks them against the association's requirements.
Side by side
| condo.insure | Mackoul Building Guard | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Self-serve software | Monitoring service delivered by agency staff |
| Who runs it | Your board or manager, in the app | Mackoul's "dedicated department" |
| Pricing | Published — $1.00/unit/mo to 750 units, $0.50 to 10,000, $0.25 above; $50/mo minimum | Not published — "get a free quote"; described as a one-year contract |
| Free trial | 90 days | Not stated |
| Getting owners on the system | Owner list built from property records; owners forward an email | "Mackoul will upload each resident via spreadsheet onto our tracking platform" |
| Reading the declaration page | AI extraction, checked against your minimums | No automation or AI claim is made on their site |
| Chasing non-responders | Automated reminders on a schedule | Initial request plus "an additional five requests"; at renewal, 30-day notice plus "eight additional requests" |
| Board visibility | Live dashboard, any time | Report at 30 days plus "subsequent reports detailing who is and who is non-compliant" |
| Who is covered | Unit owners; renters via HO-4 sub-units | "owners, renters, and commercial occupants" |
| Multi-association portfolio view | Yes — firm dashboard, roles and assignment groups | Sold to "the board and/or property manager"; no portfolio view described |
| Geography | Florida-first | National — "clients throughout the country" |
| Also your insurance broker? | No — but see the disclosure above | Yes, that is the core business |
On price — what can and can't be said
We cannot tell you whether we are cheaper, because Mackoul does not publish a price. Their site invites you to "get a free quote for your association" and describes a one-year contract.[4] Anyone claiming to know their rate without a quote is guessing.
What we can say is what we charge, publicly, before you talk to anyone: $1.00 per unit per month up to 750 units, $0.50 from 751 to 10,000, $0.25 above that, with a $50 per month minimum, a 90-day free trial and no setup fee. A 120-unit association pays $120 a month. You can work out your own number on the cost calculator without giving us an email address.
That difference — a published rate versus a quote — is the honest pricing comparison. It is not a claim about which is less expensive.
Where Mackoul is the better choice
Genuinely, and not as a rhetorical device. Pick them if:
- You want it handled, not shown to you. Building Guard is staffed work. If your board has no appetite to run anything, "a dedicated department does it" is a real answer and software isn't.
- Mackoul already writes your master policy. One relationship, one point of contact, and the people chasing owner coverage already understand the building's insurance.
- You need renters and commercial occupants monitored too. They state all three groups explicitly.
- You're outside Florida. They serve clients nationally. We are built Florida-first — wind-excluded HO-6 pairs, loss assessment, post-Surfside requirements — and that focus is less useful in Ohio.
- You want a human on the phone. A 39-year-old agency with 64 people and 1,900 associations is a different kind of counterparty than a small software company.
Where condo.insure is the better choice
- You want to see the answer right now. A live dashboard beats a report cadence when someone asks "are we covered?" in a meeting.
- You want to know the price before you talk to anyone. Published rate, free trial, cancel any time.
- You manage multiple associations. One login across the portfolio, with role-based access and assignment groups, instead of a separate engagement per building.
- You don't want owners creating accounts. Forwarding the insurer's email is the entire workflow — no portal, no password.
- Your building has Florida's awkward policy structures. A wind-excluded HO-6 plus a separate wind-only policy is a compliant pair, and we treat it as one.
Compliance tracking is one line item in an association's obligations. Plenty of boards keep their broker relationship and run software for visibility. If Mackoul writes your master policy, that is not a reason to avoid tracking coverage yourself — and vice versa.
How to check any of this yourself
- Ask both for a written scope: who uploads owners, who chases them, how often, and what the board receives.
- Ask what happens to a policy that is current but non-compliant — wrong limits, wind excluded. That is where most tracking quietly fails.
- Ask for the contract term and what renewal looks like.
- Ask whether owners must create an account. Response rates depend on it more than anything else.
- Get Mackoul's quote. We can't tell you the number and neither can anyone else.
See your own numbers first
Work out what condo.insure would cost your association — no email required — or start a 90-day trial and see your actual compliance picture.
Cost calculator Start freeSources
All Mackoul material fetched 2026-08-02. Their pages can change — re-check before relying on anything here.
- Mackoul Risk Solutions — company overview and service lines. mackoul.com
- Mackoul Risk Solutions — Our Story (founded 1987, employee count, associations served). mackoul.com/about/our-story
- Building Guard — program description and how it works. buildingguard.com/how-it-works · mackoul.com — homeowners insurance monitoring
- Building Guard — quote request and contract term language. buildingguard.com — monitoring program