If you have a claim on your house or barns and you are not insured to replacement cost value, it’s going to cost you much more than the additional premium you would have paid if you had been insured to replacement cost value in the first place.

The values of your house and barns should be reviewed each year. The cost of reconstruction changes quickly. The US Department of Labor reported from 2003 to 2004 that the cost of lumber alone increased 17%. People confuse market-value (the value at which your house/property would sell) with replacement cost (what it would cost to rebuild your house/barns in today’s market). Sometimes property-owners insure just to satisfy their mortgage lender – insuring the property based on the amount of the loan and not the replacement value of the buildings. A 2005 survey by Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, a building cost information company in Los Angeles, found that 59% of American homes are undervalued for insurance purposes by an average of 22%.

A high percentage of insurance agents rely on Marshall & Swift/Boeckh as the standard for home and out-building valuations. Now it is also available to the homeowner at www.accucoverage.com.

The agent may make some assumptions doing their calculations but No one knows your house like you do – making the evaluation more accurate. By using Accucoverage you can compare your evaluation to your agent’s