How To Calculate Rebuilding Costs For Home Insurance? 
Getting the replacement cost right on a homeowners policy is one of the most important jobs for an agent . Get this wrong and you could eventually end up in court . This is also one of the most difficult things to explain to your client . They seem to have a hard time differentiating between market value and replacement cost . The industry has some tools that are pretty universal and standard for calculating replacement cost . Marshall Swift/Boeckh is the company that developed a program that most companies and agencies use . their RCT Express program allows you to input all the aspects of the home and calculates what it would cost to rebuild it . With this program , you can print out questionnaires that help you to gather the tight information to get an accurate replacement cost . Some of these criteria are : Square footage of the living area Configuration -LRB- 1 story , 2 story , bilevel , etc. -RRB- Foundation -LRB- basement , crawl space , slab -RRB- Type of heating and cooling Roof construction Wall construction ... and on and on . Way too many to list . To accurately estimate a replacement cost you need to get all these questions answered . It 's important to use a method like this that is recognized in the industry . You do n't want to find out after the claim that the home can not be rebuilt with the coverage on their policy Remember that whole `` you could end up in court '' thing ? Be smart , find a good agent that has experience in doing this . You may pay a little more as many agents will underestimate this to show a lower premium , but it 's worth it at claim time . 