Having adequate buildings insurance is a condition of your mortgage.

However, there is no mechanism for making sure that you do!

Some lenders insist you buy their insurance, some don’t care, some want to see your insurance policy while others charge you for looking at the policy of your own choice!

The level of the cover you need is the cost of re-building your property.
This may be more than your property is currently valued at or less e.g. you may live in an area where building costs are much lower than the sale price or you may live in a remote area where re-building costs are high and the sale price of property is low. In other words, the re-building costs have nothing to do with

the value of your property.

A terraced property is relatively more expensive to re-build than a semi-detached property which is in turn more expensive than a detached one. A terraced rebuild might need to weatherproof and prop up 2 neighbouring properties while it is re-built, a ‘semi’ only has one neighbour and a detached property has none.

Re-build costs are always higher than a new build costs as demolition may be required and disposal of existing material is always expensive. Re-build costs can be dependent on the age of your property which is often an indication of construction method. A listed building of dressed stone-work, a thatched roof and sash windows will be much more expensive than a similar sized property in a similar location made of brick and block, cement slates and upvc windows.

We insist you have buildings insurance because it is in your interest to protect

the most expensive thing you have every bought!

… the calculation that turns your loan and …