House insurance rebuild cost

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Pneuma

Registered User
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Hi everyone,

In the process of buying a house. Just got the valuation back from the bank. The appointed EA has put an off the wall rebuild value. Looks like all he did was take the floor area and multiply it by the value on the SCSI website, add a bit for garage then round up to the nearest 100k! Floor area and build cost are not linearly related. Can I challenge this value? It's going to make the insurance ridiculous. Will the bank require that I insure the house for the value the EA said? Any advice welcome.
 
The SCSI average rebuild cost would be a fairly popular method of working out the value for insurance rebuild cost, albeit you'd then add additional amounts, as appropriate.

What do you think it should be, higher or lower, and why?
 
Thanks for the feedback. The house is 300m2 and I've been given a rebuild cost of €1.1m. To me this seems excessive. I know what my cousin spent building a 250m2 house and it was nowhere near this...less than half.
 
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As most people are aware at this stage buying a house and building a house are still far apart in figures . Having a conversation this week with a builder and a QS the average cost is €250 sq ft and your house is 300 sq mt or 3229 sq ft your build cost is north of €800k all depends on what spec you want ,heating , windows , arch roof , natural slate etc ....
 
€1.1m for a 300sqm house in Dublin, with a garage, doesn’t sound particularly excessive to me, assuming there are multiple bathrooms, fitted wardrobes, high-end kitchen, etc.

You definitely don’t want to underestimate the rebuild costs given the “averaging clause”.
 
Pneuma said:
Thanks for the feedback. The house is 300m2 and I've been given a rebuild cost of €1.1m. To me this seems excessive. I know what my cousin spent building a 250m2 house and it was nowhere near this...less than half.
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What your cousin can build for will be of no interest to an insurer in the event of a claim. They will send an assessor out who will make their own assessment on the rebuild costs (likely in line with the SCSI figures). If their assessment arrives at more than your figure, they will reduce any payout by a corresponding percentage.

Example, say you insure with a re-build cost of €600k and the assessor says €1M, you will only receive 60% of any amount claimed, even if the claim is not for a full rebuild and much less than the overall sum insured.
 
Thanks everyone. Maybe its not worth fighting it so. Next issue I have is that I'm struggling to find anyone that will quote for this rebuild cost, online anyway.
 
Thevalue you insure for is entirely your choice, based on good advice if you are sensible. What has some EAs opinion got to do with anything. Might as well ask your dentist.
 
cremeegg said:
Thevalue you insure for is entirely your choice, based on good advice if you are sensible. What has some EAs opinion got to do with anything. Might as well ask your dentist.
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Except in this case it would appear the EA's advice was sound.
 
cremeegg said:
Thevalue you insure for is entirely your choice, based on good advice if you are sensible. What has some EAs opinion got to do with anything. Might as well ask your dentist.
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I assumed that the bank asks for this cost in the valuation form to ensure that I insure the house for at least that value. Is this not the case?
 
Pneuma said:
Thanks for the feedback. The house is 300m2 and I've been given a rebuild cost of €1.1m. To me this seems excessive. I know what my cousin spent building a 250m2 house and it was nowhere near this...less than half.
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when did they build the house?
 
If you are drawing down a mortgage and the conditions stipulate house insurance which they normally would then you will have to provide a policy for the amount the bank valuer advised before you can draw down.

What you renew it for next year is up to you however ill advised that may be!
 
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