How much dewelling coverage should I get for my home owner's insurance? In terms of cost per Sq foot?

Question

For San Jose, CA area.

Answer 1

Your insurance agent has a tool to calculate the Replacment Cost for your home.  They more than likely would be happy to sit down with you to imupt the many factors ( location, year built, sq', building material, stories, type of foundation, features such as walk out basement, fireplace, central vac..  Also the quality of constuction. I would NOT recommend asking a contractor or a home builder, because there are other factors involved like removal clean up and type of building material.  A replacement cost policy will pay to rebuild your home with the SAME building material that your home is built with... for example if you have plaster walls.. that would be taken into consideration rather than todays material (drywall) that homebuilder will use.

Actually the tool that my agency uses is Xactvalue.  You may be able to figure this yourself if you go to WWW.XACTVALUE.COM.   It can be very detailed, so you may still want to sit down with an agent to discuss, just to be sure.

Answer 2

That question is impossible to answer without way more information about your house. A house that has brick veneer exterior walls would have a higher cost/sq ft than a house with vinyl siding over frame walls. A house with plaster walls would have a higher cost/sq ft than a house with painted drywall walls. A house with a kitchen that has imported ceramic tile floors, marble countertops and oak cabinets would have a higher cost/sq ft than a house with a kitchen that has vinyl floors and laminate countertops and cabinets. A house built in a remote area or an island than the exact same house built in a populated urban area. Your best bet is to contact a local broker and have them calculate this. Any broker who does Homeowner's policies have access to rating software that can calculate this.

Answer 3

I would suggest you ask a contractor on how much per sq to built your home.  That's how you can estimate on how much you need for your dwelling coverage amount.

Answer 4

However much it costs to replace your house based on construction cost in your area.

Answer 5

Usually your insurer has formulas for this.  Consider getting "replacement cost" coverage.