subject: How Would You Value Your Property? [print this page] How an insurance company may value your property might not bear any relation to its market price, particularly if it is a listed building or has some unique architectural design. If there is anything unique about your property then ordinary home insurance may not be high enough to reflect that value.
Sometimes, a property's market value also demands a particular type of insurance. You may not be aware of the fact but it is possible to get different levels of home insurance, depending on the actual value of your home. If you own a valuable property then you might want to find out just what sort of insurance you should have on your high value building. If your home is worth half a million pounds or more then it may be rated as a higher value insurance property.
It is not monetary value alone that makes a home a high insurance property. Other criteria for what constitutes high value might be whether your home is on the register of listed buildings, or whether it has some architectural significance.
The need for higher value insurance is that the cost of rebuilding a property that has value outside of its market price is the amount of money that would be needed for a rebuild would also be far in excess of the building's market value. Insurance cover on a valuable building is calculated not as new for old, but as 'value' for.
There is no rule of thumb for high value building insurance. Unique buildings are valuable for different reasons and so the insurance cover has to be tailored to suit the building in question. A brief list of buildings that might come under high value insurance cover would include the accidental or deliberate damage to the building, damage due to riots or civil unrest, damage as a result of storms or floods that make the building uninhabitable and damage from a faulty heating system.
Buildings that have a unique architectural style of feature may be listed as a high value building in need of high value buildings insurance, including features such as period fireplaces or woodwork that has been carved. Although the value of the unique features of a building may make the property a high value property, this is not necessarily reflected in its market price.
When you apply for high value insurance the cost of replacing or replicating the unique features has to be considered. High value insurance is designed to reflect the cost of replacing the building and/or its unique features, not the property's market value.
If you do have high value buildings insurance on your property then you may also have some valuable contents and should seriously think about adding art or antique insurance to the more general contents insurance to ensure you have adequate cover. Insurers will ask for photographic evidence of the unique features of your home along with photographs for antiques, jewellery, rare objects and fine art works in conjunction with written insurance valuations.