Dwelling Coverage Calculator
The house, as a builder would price it
Your result will appear here
Fill in the fields and this updates as you type.
Know what this estimate is based on
- Jurisdiction
- United States — insurance is regulated state by state, so the rules behind a premium are your state's, not a federal schedule
- Rules and time period
- Premiums, limits and deductibles are the figures you enter. Health plan cost-sharing caps, Medicare amounts and state filings all reset annually.
- Scope and limitations
- Educational estimate only. Rates, required coverages and available discounts differ by where you live. Your premium is set by an insurer's own underwriting — driving record, claims history, credit-based insurance score where permitted, the property itself — and only a quote is binding. What a policy pays depends on its exclusions and limits, not on this estimate.
- Source links checked
- Sep 19, 2026
Built and regression-tested by Smart Tools Lab. It has not been individually reviewed by a licensed financial, tax, or legal professional.
Primary sources
How to use
- 01
Enter the living area of the house in square feet, using the figure a builder would price from — finished, heated living space. An unfinished basement or an attached garage is usually costed differently, so leaving them out of this field and letting the other-structures and cushion percentages absorb them gives a more honest starting point than inflating the square footage.
- 02
Enter the local rebuild cost per square foot. This is a construction figure, and it is local: labor and materials vary widely between markets, and rebuilding one house after one fire costs much more per square foot than a builder's price for one house on a subdivision of forty. Your insurer's estimator, a local builder, or a recent quote are all better sources than a national average.
- 03
Check the three percentages for other structures, personal property and loss of use. The defaults of 10%, 50% and 20% are the conventional settings on a standard homeowners form, and every one of them is derived from Coverage A rather than measured independently — which is why an error in Coverage A propagates into all three.
- 04
Open Advanced options to set an extended replacement cushion and, if you want the comparison, what the house would sell for. The cushion is the endorsement that matters most after a regional disaster, when a whole market's worth of rebuilding happens at once and materials and labor cost far more than any pre-loss estimate assumed.
- 05
Read Coverage A first and the total insured value second. Coverage A is the figure your agent is asking for and the one every other limit derives from. The total is what the policy would be paying out across all four coverages in a complete loss, and it is usually much larger than people expect.
Formula
Coverage A — the dwelling limit — is the living area in square feet multiplied by the local rebuild cost per square foot. Every other limit on a standard homeowners form is then a percentage of that one figure: Coverage B for other structures at the other-structures percentage, Coverage C for personal property at the personal-property percentage, and Coverage D for loss of use at the loss-of-use percentage, each applied to Coverage A rather than measured on its own. The total insured value is the sum of all four. The extended replacement figure is Coverage A multiplied by one plus the cushion percentage, which is the most the policy would pay for the structure if rebuilding cost more than the limit assumed. Where you supply a market value, the page reports only the difference between it and Coverage A, and does not feed it into any limit — because market value includes land and location, neither of which is insured, and using it to set coverage is the single most common way a house ends up wrongly insured in either direction.
Example
A 2,000 square foot house in a market where rebuilding costs about $180 a square foot gives a Coverage A dwelling limit of $360,000. The standard percentages then follow from it: other structures at 10% is $36,000, personal property at 50% is $180,000, and loss of use at 20% is $72,000, so the total insured value across the four coverages is $648,000. Adding a 25% extended replacement endorsement would lift the dwelling limit to $450,000 if a rebuild after a regional disaster cost more than the estimate assumed. Now add what the house would sell for. At a market value of $500,000 the page reports that rebuilding costs $140,000 less than the sale price, most of it the land — the normal case, and the reason a coverage figure below the purchase price is usually correct rather than a mistake. At a market value of $300,000 it reports the opposite: rebuilding costs $60,000 more than the house would sell for, which happens with older or custom construction and is the case where insuring to the market price would leave a real gap.
Definitions
- Living area (sq ft)
- Finished, heated living space as a builder would price it. Unfinished basements and attached garages are usually costed separately rather than added here.
- Local rebuild cost per sq ft
- What construction costs in your market, per square foot. Rebuilding one house after one loss costs more per foot than building many at once, so a developer's price is usually too low.
- Coverage A — dwelling
- The limit on the structure itself. The figure your agent asks for, and the base every other limit on the policy is a percentage of.
- Coverage B — other structures
- Detached structures such as a garage, shed or fence. Conventionally 10% of Coverage A.
- Coverage C — personal property
- Your possessions. Conventionally 50% of Coverage A, and usually subject to category sublimits on jewelry, cash and collectibles.
- Coverage D — loss of use
- Additional living expenses while the house is uninhabitable — rent, meals above normal, storage. Conventionally 20% of Coverage A.
- Extended replacement cushion
- An endorsement paying above the dwelling limit by a stated percentage when rebuilding costs more than the policy assumed. Written for demand surge after a regional disaster.
- Replacement cost
- What it costs to rebuild with materials of like kind and quality at today's prices, with no deduction for age or wear — as distinct from actual cash value, which subtracts depreciation.
- Coinsurance penalty
- The reduction an insurer applies when you carry less than the required share of replacement cost, commonly about 80%. It reduces partial claims, not only total losses.
- Market value
- What the house would sell for, including the land. Reported here only as a comparison; it is never used to set a coverage limit.
Frequently asked questions
How much dwelling coverage do I need?
Enough to rebuild the house, which is a construction estimate rather than a market price. On this page's defaults — 2,000 square feet at $180 a square foot — Coverage A is $360,000. From that the standard percentages give $36,000 of other structures, $180,000 of personal property and $72,000 of loss of use, for a total insured value of $648,000. Your own answer moves with the local cost per square foot more than with anything else on the page.
Why is my dwelling coverage lower than my home's value?
Because you do not insure the land, and the land is often a large share of the price. Enter a market value of $500,000 against the default $360,000 rebuild and the page reports that rebuilding costs $140,000 less than the market value — most of that difference being the lot the house sits on, which does not burn down. A mortgage lender or a well-meaning relative who expects the coverage to match the purchase price is applying the wrong test.
Can rebuilding cost more than the house is worth?
Regularly, and it is one of the most expensive surprises in homeowners insurance. Enter a market value of $300,000 against the same $360,000 rebuild and the page reports that rebuilding costs $60,000 more than the market value. This happens with older construction, with custom or architecturally unusual houses, and in softer markets where the sale price has fallen below what building the same structure today would cost. Insure to rebuild, not to sell.
What are Coverage A, B, C and D?
The four standard sections of a homeowners policy. Coverage A is the dwelling itself, the structure and what is attached to it. Coverage B is other structures — a detached garage, a shed, a fence — conventionally set at 10% of A. Coverage C is personal property, everything you would take with you if you moved, conventionally 50% of A. Coverage D is loss of use, which pays the additional living costs of staying somewhere else while the house is repaired, conventionally 20%. On the defaults they come to $360,000, $36,000, $180,000 and $72,000.
Is 50% of the dwelling limit enough personal property coverage?
It is a starting assumption, not a measurement, and it is worth testing against a real inventory. On the defaults it comes to $180,000. Whether that covers your possessions depends on things the percentage cannot know, and most policies also sublimit particular categories — jewelry, cash, firearms, collectibles — to a few thousand dollars regardless of the overall Coverage C figure. Scheduling those items separately is the usual remedy. Photograph or video the contents of every room while you are thinking about it; proving what you owned is the hard part of a large contents claim.
What is extended replacement cost and do I need it?
An endorsement that will pay above your Coverage A limit by a stated percentage if rebuilding turns out to cost more than the policy assumed. With the default 25% cushion, the $360,000 limit would stretch to $450,000. It exists for exactly one situation: demand surge after a regional disaster, when hundreds of houses in one market are being rebuilt at once and the price of labor and materials rises sharply. That is precisely the moment a pre-loss estimate is most likely to be too low, which is why the endorsement is usually inexpensive relative to what it does.