Homeowners Coverage Calculator
Size your dwelling coverage from rebuild cost, not market value.
Your Homeowners Coverage Calculator Result
Generated from the inputs below — a record you can revisit, or share with anyone helping you plan.
Your detailsInput Parameters
Your Home
Finished living area. Exclude an unfinished basement or garage — they are counted separately below.
The national average is $162/sq ft per the NAHB Cost of Construction Survey ($428,215 for an average 2,647 sq ft home). High-cost coastal and Northeast markets run well above it; the South and Midwest below. A local builder can give you a real number in one phone call.
Finish level drives rebuild cost more than square footage does. Custom millwork, stone, and specialty systems all rebuild at a premium.
Rebuilt at roughly half the cost of finished living area.
Other Coverage
Fences, sheds, detached garages. Leave at 0 to use the standard 10% of dwelling coverage.
Everything you would carry out. Leave at 0 to use the standard 50% of dwelling coverage — but walk your house and check, because that default underinsures most people.
Sanity Check
For comparison only. Insurance never pays for your land, so replacement cost and market value are different numbers and should not match.
2,000 sq ft x $162/sq ft x 1 quality factor, plus 100 sq ft of garage/unfinished space at half rate. This is what it costs to rebuild the structure today, which is the only number your dwelling limit should be based on. This is an estimate for planning, not an insurance quote. Actual pricing is set by the insurer or, in promulgated-rate states, by the state regulator.
Standard HO-3 policies set this at 10% of dwelling coverage automatically.
Standard HO-3 default of 50% of dwelling coverage. Jewelry, firearms, collectibles and cash carry separate sub-limits that are far lower — those need scheduled endorsements.
20% of dwelling coverage — pays for somewhere to live while the house is rebuilt. A full rebuild commonly takes 9–18 months.
A standard policy pays up to your dwelling limit and no further. Extended or guaranteed replacement cost endorsements pay ticket 25-50% above it, which is what protects you when a regional disaster spikes local labour and material prices for a year or two after the loss. It is usually a small premium increase for the largest single risk in the policy.
Analysis
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Open calculatorInsure the Rebuild, Not the Sale Price
The most common and most expensive mistake in homeowners insurance is sizing your dwelling coverage against what the house is worth on the market. Insurance does not pay to replace your land, your neighbourhood, or your school district. It pays to rebuild the structure.
Those are different numbers, and they are supposed to be different. In an expensive metro, replacement cost can be far below market value — insuring to market value there means paying premiums on coverage that can never pay out. In a cooled market or a high-construction-cost area, the reverse happens, and underinsuring is the costly direction.
This calculator sizes Coverage A (dwelling) from square footage and local rebuild cost, then derives the standard HO-3 sub-limits that carriers set as percentages of it. It does not estimate your annual premium — that requires carrier underwriting data, and any site that gives you a premium without asking about your claims history and roof age is guessing.
Everything runs in your browser. Nothing you type is sent to a server, and there is no signup.
How Replacement Cost Is Calculated
Worked example using this calculator's defaults:
- 2,000 sq ft finished × $162/sq ft × 1.0 standard quality = $324,000
- 400 sq ft garage × $162 × 0.5 × 1.0 = $32,400
- Dwelling coverage = $356,400
The $162 per square foot baseline comes from the National Association of Home Builders Cost of Construction Survey, which found an average construction cost of $428,215 for a typical new single-family home of 2,647 square feet. That is construction only — it excludes land, which is exactly right for insurance purposes.
Treat it as a starting point, not an answer. High-cost coastal and Northeast markets run well above it and the South and Midwest below, and finish level moves the number more than square footage does. A local builder can give you a real figure in one phone call, and that beats any national average.
This is an estimate for planning, not an insurance quote. Actual pricing is set by the insurer or, in promulgated-rate states, by the state regulator.
The HO-3 Sub-Limits and Where They Fail
Standard homeowners policies set the other coverages as percentages of your dwelling limit:
| Coverage | Standard % | On $356,400 dwelling |
|---|---|---|
| B — Other structures | 10% | $35,640 |
| C — Personal property | 50% | $178,200 |
| D — Loss of use | 20% | $71,280 |
Two warnings about these defaults.
Personal property at 50% underinsures most households, and the sub-limits inside it are worse. Jewelry, firearms, cash and collectibles carry their own caps that are often a few thousand dollars regardless of your Coverage C limit. Those need scheduled endorsements listing the items individually.
Loss of use is easy to underestimate. A full rebuild commonly takes nine to eighteen months, and after a regional disaster it takes longer because every contractor in the county is booked.
The Endorsement That Matters Most
A standard policy pays up to your dwelling limit and not a dollar further. That is fine until the reason your house burned down is the same reason every house on your street burned down — and local labour and material prices spike 30% to 50% for the next year or two.
Extended replacement cost (typically 25% to 50% above your limit) and guaranteed replacement cost exist for exactly this scenario. They are usually a modest premium increase for the largest single risk in the policy.
Two related habits worth building:
- Re-check your limit at every renewal, and after any remodel. Rebuild costs moved sharply upward in recent years — a limit set five years ago is very likely too low today.
- Ask for the line-item rebuild estimate if your carrier's number is materially below this calculator's. Carriers use proprietary cost databases that pull from public records and can miss interior upgrades.