Home Insurance

We are a couple of weeks out from handover and it is time to start getting our home and contents insurance sorted.

just using hypothetical numbers, say our build cost us $250,000........how much would you insure the house for? Taking into account that the amount insured would need to cover rebuilding, so demolition, site clearing etc.....

I would put 350 house, 70 for contents, review it every year so you don't under insure.

Please don't take people's advice on what to set your contents sum insured because it varies so much from household to household. For example my husband and I are only 30 and 34 years old but our contents sum insured is $160k plus $15k specified jewellery and to be honest we're slightly under insured and need to update that when we move into our new house. Your contents sum insured needs to allow for carpets, blinds and curtains as these are not part of the building. Also think about if you lost everything what would it cost to replace everything with new items -- not just large furniture and appliances but every piece of clothing, linen, all your kitchen stuff like crockery, pots and pans, refilling your panty/fridge/freezer with food etc).

In terms of building sum insured make sure you take into account any additional work you'll be undertaking after handover (i.e. fences, additional paving/driveways, air conditioning, garden sheds, light fittings etc) and add these values on top of your build price. Check the wording of the policy you're going for as some allow a percentage of your sum insured value for demolition in the event of a total loss claim which is covered on top of your sum insured and other companies include this in the sum insured. By the time all things are taken about I would expect this value to land somewhere between $300-400k. Bear in mind the premium for building cover is the cheaper aspect of the policy so if you over insure slightly to give yourself buffer room this will make negligible difference to the cost, contents is the higher risk and is the more expensive portion of the premium.

Hope that helps a little and if you get stuck you'll find a lot of domestic insurers will have calculators or guides to help you work these things out, often available on their website


Follow our build with Express Two Storey (Ventura Group): http://tinyurl.com/jlykgph

As a condition of our construction loan, our bank specified the minimum insurance we must have on the house. That value was 15% above the total estimated build cost (which already took into account driveway and paths, floor coverings, window furnishings, etc).