How do I measure my home correctly for insurance purposes?

Firstly, I would like to point out a common misunderstanding some homeowners have. When insuring your property, you are insuring for the cost of rebuilding the house, not what it cost you to buy or what you could sell it for.

It crucial that you insure for the correct value. If your home is underinsured, your insurer may reduce any claim in proportion to the level of underinsurance, even where the damage is only partial.

For example, if your home is insured for 80 per cent of its true rebuild cost, you could potentially only receive 80 per cent of the cost of a covered repair (leaking roof/kitchen fire or some such). Obviously, if your entire house requires rebuilding, this can cause significant financial issues considering rising construction costs.

The SCSI website includes a house rebuild calculator that helps homeowners estimate the minimum cost of rebuilding standard homes for insurance purposes, using the property’s location, house type and floor area. The guide includes allowances for demolition, professional fees and VAT, but additional provision may be required for higher-specification finishes, outbuildings or non-standard properties. Make sure you include for all relevant costs in your rebuild value.

It also explains how to measure your home. You need to measure the entire area within your “four walls” for each floor (ignore stair openings). It is useful to sketch out the layout of your house and use basic area calculations for the shape(s) your overall house is.

For each floor, measure the internal area to the inside face of the external or party walls, ignoring skirting boards. In many two- or three-storey houses, the upper floors match the ground-floor footprint. Where they differ, measure each storey separately, then add the areas together to obtain the total floor area in square metres.

As noted on the website, the SCSI rebuild calculator is for standard homes, such as terraced, semidetached or detached estate-type homes and should not be used for other house types such as one-off homes in the countryside or period properties.

If your house doesn’t fit into this category it is recommended to contact a chartered quantity surveyor from the directory on the website and they can assist in calculating the real cost of rebuilding bespoke homes.

Craig Potter is a chartered quantity surveyor and a member of the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland

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