Home Insurance sum insured

Calculate the cost of rebuilding your home.

Calculate home sum insured

Understanding home sum insured

Your home sum insured is an estimate of the maximum cost of repairing or rebuilding your home if it gets damaged or destroyed, excluding any special features. 

Your home sum insured should include features like

  • Driveways, swimming pools or retaining walls up to $50,000

  • Building materials, labour, demolition

  • Compliance, professional fees and GST

Your home sum insured is not

  • The rateable value of your property provided by your council

  • The purchase price of your home

  • The market value or land value

  • Inclusive of special features (like jetties, bridges over $15,000 and cable cars) unless you add extra cover to your policy

Understanding replacement cover

If your home is damaged or destroyed by fire or explosion, we’ll pay to repair or rebuild your home up to the same floor area – even if it ends up costing more than your home sum insured.

To qualify for replacement cover, use the Cordell Sum Sure calculator and choose a sum insured that’s equal to or greater than the estimate for your home. Call us on 0800 80 24 24 if you’d like more information about replacement cover.

Understanding special feature sums insured

Our home insurance policies have limits on some items. For example, retaining walls are covered up to a limit of $50,000, but if yours are worth more, you can list them on your policy as a special feature with their own sum insured amount. Certain features, like cable cars or jetties, won't be insured unless listed on your policy with a separate special feature sum insured amount.

You'll need to tell us the rebuild value of your home without its special features and the value of those features to ensure you have enough cover for both.

What is home sum insured?

Your total sum insured

Your total sum insured is made up of your home sum insured, plus the sum insured for any special features you buy cover for. 

Home sum insured

 
  • Cost to rebuild your home
  • All retaining walls up to $50,000
  • A permanently fixed swimming pool, including its necessary equipment such as pumps, up to $50,000
  • A bridge, culvert, permanent ford or dam up to $15,000

+ Special feature sums insured

 
  • All retaining walls over $50,000
  • A permanently fixed swimming pool, including its necessary equipment such as pumps, over $50,000
  • A bridge, culvert, permanent ford or dam over $15,000
  • A wharf, pier, landing or jetty
  • A cable car and its associated equipment

= Total sum insured

Total sum insured includes all automatic and optional benefits, unless stated otherwise in a benefit 

Home sum insured calculator

The Cordell Sum Sure calculator can help you work out your home or rental home sum insured. This is based on things like building materials, labour, professional fees, demolition, and GST.

The calculator is a guide only and doesn’t replace a professional valuation or quantity surveyor estimate. You must make your own decision on the sum insured, and it’s up to you to ensure it’s accurate. 

What do I need to do?

New to State?

Need to get your home insurance sorted? You can work out your sum insured amount with the Cordell Sum Sure calculator and then get a quote. Easy as.

Use the calculator

Already with State?

Even if you’ve had home insurance for a while, it’s important to review your sums insured regularly to make sure it’s accurate. You can do this at any time while you have a policy with us.

At renewal time, we may adjust your sums insured for rising costs, but this won’t include any changes you may have made to your property. It’s up to you to choose the right sums insured, and make sure your home and any of its special features are covered. 

Use the calculator
Review your cover

Bought or built a house

We recommend you don’t rely on market value or purchase price to work out your sums insured. Rebuild costs can be very different to the cost of purchasing a home. If you built a house recently, you could use the build cost, but consider things like demolition and inflation. 

Use the calculator