When you get a quote for home insurance you may be asked to specify a rebuild cost for your property. This means the cost to completely rebuild your home, including materials and labour. This will vary according to the size, age and type of property you have. If you recently purchased the property, an up to date rebuild cost will be detailed in the deeds or survey. If you don’t have this information, there are other ways of finding out.
To get a rebuild cost, you can either hire a surveyor or use a rebuild calculator to estimate the average cost of rebuilding your home.
For approximately £200, a chartered surveyor will do detailed measurements of your home and then produce a professional rebuilding cost assessment. You should consider employing a surveyor to get the most accurate rebuild cost. Find a surveyor >
For flats and maisonettes, we recommend that you employ a chartered surveyor. If you have a leasehold, check your contract to see if building insurance is in place.
You can also calculate the rebuild cost by using The Association of British Insurers, which offers free access to their buildings rebuild cost calculator. Register to access the rebuild calculator >
You will need to measure all floors in the property (in feet or metres). If each floor is of a different size, these areas will need to be calculated separately. After entering this information and answering other questions, the calculator will produce an approximate rebuild cost.
This rebuild calculator can be used for:
- Detached homes
- Semi-detached homes
- Terraced homes
- Detached bungalow
- Semi-detached bungalow
The guidance figures the rebuild calculator provides are based on specific examples of five different house types of average quality, built using standard construction methods. To ensure your property complies please visit the ABI’s website.
Find the right Hiscox insurance policy for you
To make things easier for you, when you get a home insurance quote we will automatically provide you with buildings cover of up to £500,000. However, we'll also ask you some questions to calculate a real value on which your quote will be based. This will ensure you are not paying for unnecessary cover, but you will have adequate cover if you need to make a claim.
More information on home insurance >
Useful resources:
Association of British Insurers rebuild calculator
