The Great House Insurance Mystery

Where is the Society of Chartered Surveyors 2009 report setting the rebuild costs on which insurance companies base their premiums? Apparently they don’t even have an estimated date for delivery. Instead, we’re all paying our insurance companies based on values in the May 2008 report.

If you have a mortgage on your house (if you have a house) the financial institution which loaned you the money will want to know that you’ve properly protected their interest.

In case of meteor strike, they will want the comfort of knowing that you’ve taken out an insurance policy covering the cost of rebuilding. Some of the big banks even have insurance arms to sell you just such an insurance policy.

The insurance companies use the Society of Chartered Surveyors, self described as Ireland’s Largest Construction and Property Professional Body to set that cost. One aquaintance in Mullingar is paying insurance on her house at an estimated rebuild cost of €205 per square foot. This results in a notional rebuild cost in a construction downturn which is higher than the market value.

I’ll update this, if I get a comment from the Society of Chartered Surveyors.

3 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.