Half of homeowners not confident that their home is fully insured

As rising inflation and increased building and rebuilding costs continue to impact the cost of rebuilding a home, almost half (49%) of homeowners in Ireland said they would not be confident that their home would be fully insured if they made a claim today. 

This is according to a survey of over 1,000 homeowners, undertaken by Qualtrics for Zurich Insurance, which revealed that many homeowners are not confident that their insurance cover is in step with both rising inflation and increased building and rebuilding costs, leaving them at risk of potentially being underinsured. 

A recent report from the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland (SCSI) revealed that house rebuilding costs have increased by an average of 12% nationally over the last 12 months on top of an average 21% increase in 2022. The overall cumulative impact in rebuild costs is 35.5% over two years.

However, the survey carried out for Zurich found that despite the findings of the SCSI report, only a quarter of respondents (25%) have reviewed the cost it would take to rebuild their home over the last 12 months; 22% of homeowners reviewed the cost to rebuild one year ago; and almost two in five (38%) have not checked this in over three years, cannot remember checking or have never checked the cost to rebuild. 

The SCSI attributed the yearly increase in rebuild costs to a continued shortage of labour and high demand for builders.

In last year’s research, only half (51%) of homeowners were correctly insuring their properties and over one third of homeowners (36%) were incorrectly insuring their properties by basing their calculation on their home’s market value rather than the home’s rebuild cost. While the number of homeowners not confident that their home is fully insured remains high at 49%, this is down from 66% in Zurich’s last survey undertaken in 2022, which indicates that homeowners are starting to take the necessary steps to ensure their homes are insured.