Rebuild cost

SteveBentley

I'm just about to renew my buildings and contents insurance.

When I bought the house in 2001 the valuation included a figure of £60,000 rebuilding cost, for insurance purposes. Is there any formula or web based calculator which I can use to extrapolate this into today's figures?

I'm tempted to just put £90k to make sure it's definitely covered.

Thanks in advance for any hints

Quote

Have you checked your present sum insured with your insurers? Rebuild costs are usually index linked.

SteveBentley

I changed insurance company last year and just used the 60k on the the valuation, which I've realised may not have been the smartest move ever.

I've been onto http://www.moneysorter.co.uk/calculator_inflation.html and that's put it at just short of 70k, so I'm thinking I should base it on £75k.

Oscar_The_Grouch

The best place to go to is the BCIS website. Here is a link to their rebuilding calculator:

http://calculator.bcis.co.uk/

The BCIS is the basis for rebuilding cost valuations used by most loss adjusters.

mic200202

If its any help, a customer of mine was buying a house in N.Ireland and she was buying it for £65,000 - this was in 1998. At the time the new lender offered her cover for the min rebuild cost (£60,000) as per the surveyors valuation report.On talking to me, I offered her a policy which was relatively new for the time which had cover up to £500k.She took my cover as the premuims were similar.3 months later I had a call from her.She was in a hotel (paid for by the insurer) as the property had been flooded by a one in a hundred year event and basically need to be knocked down and rebuilt.The loss adjuster had been out - his figure for the TOTAL rebuild was £140,000. If she had taken out the other policy she would have been totally underinsured.I often recount this story to warn of the dangers of using min figs for rebuild costs.As buildings insurance is relatively cheap my advice is to go for a type that has either unlimited or a high enough figure that it wouldnt cause a problem.Beware of attempting to estimate this using calculators or min rebuild costs.Many insurance brokers will offer stripped down cover by compromising this cost.