Home Insurance and Rebuilding Costs
In an article I wrote for the Irish News of the World recently about the cost of insurance, I highlighted an issue that given current times is worth repeating in a post of it’s own.
We all know the property market is suffering badly now, so with cheaper costs for labour and materials, it could be worthwhile getting your rebuild cost for your hose re-estimated in case it could reduce your home and buildings insurance premium.
This was written about recently as well on the Tuppenceworth.ie blog – The Great House Insurance Mystery.
Basically, to get your mortgage you’ll have had to get home insurance to cover the rebuild cost of your home. As I pointed out in my article, those rebuild costs are likely to have come down recently given the tough times the country is experiencing.
Yet, as pointed out by Tuppenceworth, the standard reference material used in Ireland to calculate rebuild costs hasn’t been updated for nearly a year now.
This all means that we’re all more than likely overpaying on the rebuild part of our home insurance costs.
3 Comments
My householders insurance policy 2009 has just risen from €726-57 to €892-30. My broker (possibly) increased the valuation from €485,000 to €607,000 (buildings and contents) without consulting me. I have a small claim pending but this should not have effected the change. I thought rebuilding costs were dropping. What to do? I have only two weeks to act and maybe will not be taken by another insurance company because of the claim.
Urgent
Michael – shop around, it can’t hurt!
I recently renewed my house insurance through my broker and after a claim on my broken Macbook last year wasn’t looking forward to it.
Sure enough, the premium had gone up, but my broker had found another insurance company for the same price or slightly less than last year’s payment!
The second company didn’t count claims of less than 1500 Euro against the no-claims bonus I think.
Just to confirm, the 2009 Guide is now availabe from the SCS website here – http://www.scs.ie/publications/digital_publications.