Home Rising value home and increasing sum insured

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coilte

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Our Home Insurance policy is up for renewal and the sum insured is approximately half the value of the value of the house.
Should the sum insured be equal to the value of the property, reason I ask is obviously building costs and labour have rocketed.
Our policy cost has increased by approx 50 euro per year over last four years to 450 euro.
What should we do? If we double the sum insured will the premium/cost rise in line?
I am slightly confused by home insurance and too sure what is advised, as I don’t want to be caught out in worst case.
 
Sum insured should be for rebuilding costs, market value has no impact as such. However obviously rebuilding costs have risen substantially recently, my renewal is due end of the month too and the renewal letter strongly recommends checking that it's insured for enough due to the price rises and the subsequent problem of the average clause coming into play should there be a claim.

Just doubling the sum insured is a bit hit and miss and yes the premium will rise in line with it, my letter suggests I get a valuation done to determine rebuilding costs! It also gives a link to the SCSI website and their rebuild calculator, https://scsi.ie/consumer/build/calculator/ however that doesn't cover my area as such and has always been higher than local prices. When I worked in mortgages the local valuer we used never went by their figures as it was too high for where we are, I'd say nothing has changed there as even though prices are mad they do vary across the country.

My job for tomorrow is to trawl through the websites and phone a few places to try pick on either a new policy or decide to go with renewal but amounts insured will have to be increased unfortunately.
 
This is relevant - there is a big risk of being underinsured as building costs rise.

The national average cost of rebuilding a home in Ireland rose by just over a fifth last year, the Society of Chartered Surveyors calculates.

The SCSI House Rebuilding Guide is used by homeowners to calculate the rebuilding costs of their home for insurance purposes.

It shows that the increase in rebuild costs ranges from 14% in Dublin to 26% in the northwest, with the national average increase registering at 21%.
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I increased the rebuild sum on our insurance by 50%(!) last week based on the SCSI calculator. Granted, I hadn't looked at it for a few years but I was shocked at how much it has increased.

I believe if you do have to make a claim on the buildings cover, even if that claim is less than the figure you have stated; they will do a valuation on the whole building cost and if you are underinsured by x% they will reduce the value of your claim by that percentage.
 
Thanks all, on the rebuild sum. Valuation (which i know is not applicable) is 800k, current sum rebuild cover is 400k. So would the safest thing to move rebuild cost to 600k?
I know precious little about the construction industry bar costs rocketing, and i’m not convinced by the SCSI calculator as values within Dublin vary hugely, and while i don’t want to be ‘over covered’, the current sum seems low.
 
That's just guessing though, it all depends on the sq ft/m of the house, I have calculated based on area of my detached bungalow downstairs within their calculations ignoring the converted attic for now and it comes up with a figure of 450k using the lowest per sq m cost, now if I add in upstairs that will go up again by about half :oops: There is no way it would cost me that to rebuild my pretty basic house! I know stuff has gone up even further but I put on an extension in 2020/2021 and it was quite reasonable considering, actually just realised I didn't even include the extra area of that in the downstairs area!

There is actually a new house being built very close to mine, think I'll be very cheeky and ask owner what sort of price per metre are they looking at. Trouble is though if the you know what hit the fan what calculator do the insurance company use to decide whether or not you were under insured, is it the SCSI one but as that doesn't cover every county how can they say that is the decisive figure either!
 
coilte said:
and i’m not convinced by the SCSI calculator as values within Dublin vary hugely, and while i don’t want to be ‘over covered’, the current sum seems low.
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Are you still confusing values with cost? Remember materials and labour costs are broadly similar across the Dublin region, and they dictate re-build costs, not whether it's on a nice street or not.
 
Hi all,

Update on this, and managed to get a revised quote via bonkers.ie that is actually in and around the existing bonkers.ie quote.

The Bonkers.ie premium has a yearly price, but gives option of purchasing for two/three years, and claims of savings etc, but it appears to be figure of just three times the current rate.

Is it advisable to lock in for three years in light of rocketing insurance costs? Or not?

Bizarrely, Bonkers.ie showing just one provider, Zurich? Are we a one state provider?

Any thoughts on the above?
 
I wonder how many houses each year need to be completely rebuilt for whatever reason, and can't be fixed with remedial work of some kind - is there any way to get that kind of data ?
If you have Pyrite or Mica, you wont get insured, if you live in an area prone to flooding, they wont insure you, if you have non-standard construction, you won't get insured. I don't think Ireland has any major fault lines or volcanos, so Its really only fire that could get you.
If something catastrophic happens to your house, like a massive weather event the likes of which we have never seen before, surely the state will have to just cough up and rebuild it like they did for pyrite or mica.... how could they not now, the precedent has been set ?
 
coilte said:
Bizarrely, Bonkers.ie showing just one provider, Zurich? Are we a one state provider?
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Perhaps it's only Zurich who have opened their quote engines to Bonkers?
coilte said:
Is it advisable to lock in for three years in light of rocketing insurance costs? Or not?
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Only if you feel insurance costs are rising. However, bear in mind that an increase in re-build costs beyond what you specify in year 1 could mean you would need to revise your policy anyway and pay more.
 
Rasputin said:
I wonder how many houses each year need to be completely rebuilt for whatever reason, and can't be fixed with remedial work of some kind - is there any way to get that kind of data ?
Click to expand...
Very few, and that's why home insurance doesn't cost thousands.

Have you ever seen a house after that has suffered a fire though? The fire brigade do a very thorough job of ensuring zero chance of re-ignition, but that involved a lot of water and a lot of tear down. The insurers factor the likelihood of all that into their engines, but they are usually guarded about share that information.
 
Whether they need to be fully rebuilt or not is not always the issue, the average clause comes in to effect in other situations, so say you had a house with rebuild value of 200k and had a kitchen fire with 50k of damage but you were only insured for 100k you still wouldn't get your full 50k, you'd get 25k!

I did my shopping around, for comparison purposes I used existing policy values before increasing it, all quotes and I got about 10 online were within 20 euro of each other, no major saving to be made at all. Anyway I decided to do it right and measured my house despite 'thinking' I knew the measurements, I had always assumed my house was 1,346 sq ft based on grant available way back then and assumed I built to that size, turns out I didn't! My original house footprint is only 1,100 sq ft so I was overestimating for years, adding on the extra bits etc and I only had to up my cover by 40k odd in total and it cost me €15 extra to original policy who I stuck with. Zurich as it happened too.
 
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