Home Insurance Estimator

Home insurance coverage needs to be calculated carefully to ensure that in the event of a total loss, the payout is sufficient to rebuild the home, not just buy another one at market value. Market value and rebuild cost are different numbers, and confusing them is a costly mistake.

Dwelling coverage (Coverage A) formula:

Rebuild Cost = Home Square Footage × Local Construction Cost per Sq Ft

Local construction cost benchmarks (US, 2024–2025):

Additional coverage tiers:

Worked example. A 2,200 sq ft home in the Southeast. Put 2,200 in the size field and 140 in the cost-per-sq-ft field, and the calculator runs this for you:

• Rebuild cost: 2,200 × $140 = $308,000 (Coverage A)
• Other Structures: $308,000 × 10% = $30,800
• Personal Property: $308,000 × 60% = $184,800
• Loss of Use: $308,000 × 25% = $77,000
• Total policy limits: $600,600
• Premium at moderate risk with a $1,000 deductible: $1,540/year, which sits inside the $1,200–$1,800 a Southeast policy of that size typically runs

Leave the two size fields blank and it uses whatever you put in the Coverage A box directly, which is what you want if your agent has already given you a rebuild figure.

Key policy riders to consider:

• Extended replacement cost: adds 20–50% above Coverage A limit if rebuild costs spike
• Guaranteed replacement cost: the insurer rebuilds fully regardless of cost (most expensive)
• Flood insurance: ALWAYS separate (not included in standard homeowner’s policies)
• Earthquake insurance: also always separate

The first two matter more than they sound. Construction costs jumped hard in 2021 and again after every major storm, and a policy written five years ago at a then-accurate Coverage A can fall short of the actual rebuild bill. Extended replacement cost is the cheap insurance against your insurance being wrong.

Where the 0.5% base rate comes from, and why you should not lean on it: it is roughly the US average annual premium as a share of dwelling coverage, and the spread behind that average is enormous. Oklahoma and Florida run several times what Vermont does for the same house, and a single hail-prone county can differ from the one next to it. The location selector here is a blunt four-way stand-in for something insurers model down to the address. Treat the output as a budgeting figure and nothing more.

The liability limit is the one people underinsure. Coverage E is not a percentage of the house, it is a flat limit, and $300,000 is the common default. If your net worth is above that, the gap between what you own and what the policy pays is exposed in a lawsuit. That gap is exactly what an umbrella policy is for, and it is cheap: a $1 million umbrella runs roughly what two months of the premium above costs, and it buys a limit several times larger than the whole house policy carries.