How to measure your house - a basic guide
How to measure your house - a basic guide
FMG’s Replacement cover* for houses covers the cost to rebuild, replace or repair your house in the event it’s damaged or destroyed. So it’s important we have the correct size of your house recorded to ensure you’re not left short.
Under our Replacement policy your house’s repair or replacement is limited to its actual size at the time of loss or the area (square metre) recorded on your insurance certificate, whichever is less.
To insure your house for Replacement under FMG’s House policy you will need to know the measurement of your house, garages and any outbuildings, decks, balconies and verandas. You should also let us know if your house includes any special features such as swimming pools or tennis courts.
* Replacement insurance is subject to FMG’s standard underwriting criteria and may not be available in all locations.
Measuring your house yourself
How to get started
Your starting point for what the measurements for these areas are might be:
- Building or Architectural Plans
- Property Valuations
- Your local council website
- Online property valuation sites
- If you use any of the resources above, it’s important that you make sure they’re up to date.
NOTE: Separate measurements are required for any outbuildings, decks, buildings and verandas - these do not need to be added to your house and garage measurements but we do need to have the size of these areas recorded in case of a claim.
Seven helpful steps
If you need to measure your house, or if you simply want to double check the measurements you already have, you may find the following seven steps helpful:
- Make a sketch of your property with the different areas shown and record the measurements.
- Measure around the external walls of your house.
- Measure around the external walls of any garages.
- Measure the external walls of any outbuildings (e.g. sleep outs).
- Measure any decks, balconies or verandas separately. Record the measurement for each of these different areas separately.
- If you have any multi-storey areas make sure you record the external perimeter of each level in your area calculations.
- If you are unable to measure the outside walls of an area you can measure along the inside of these walls. Please be aware that using the internal measurements to determine the size of these areas could result in you being underinsured by as much as 10-15%.
TIP: To minimise underinsurance we recommend that you add an additional 10cm for each internal wall (i.e. walls between rooms) and 15cm for any external wall.
Once you have recorded all the measurements calculate the area of your house.
Step A: Calculate the area of a house
To calculate the area of a small house with an attached garage (similar to this example) use the approach below:
Calculate the total area of the house (12 metres in length by 8 metres in width = 96sqm) and then add the area of the adjoining garage (6 metres in length by 4 metres in width = 24sqm). Add the two together to get the total area (96sqm + 24sqm = 120sqm.)
Step B: Calculate the area of a second storey
If the house also has a second storey and you need to measure the external walls from the inside, remember to add the width of the internal and external walls.
To calculate the area of a second storey as per the example below, multiply the length, 6.4 metres (6m + two external walls of 15cm each + one internal wall of 10cm) by the width of 3.3 metres (3 metres + two external walls of 15cm each). The total area of the second storey is 6.4m x 3.3m = 21.12sqm.
The total area for this two storey house and garage would be as follows: Ground House Area (96sqm) + Attached Garage (24sqm) + Second Level House Area (21.12sqm) = Total Area (141.12sqm).
Step C: Calculating the area of out-buildings, decks, verandas and balconies
The area of any outbuildings, decks, verandas and balconies also needs to be known. Calculate the size of these areas separately. To calculate the size of a sleep out, simply measure its length by its width.
In this example the area of the sleep out is 24sqm (6 metres in length by 4 metres in width).
NOTE: FMG will record the areas for your outbuildings, decks, verandas and balconies separate to the area of your house and attached garage.
Other points to note
The following areas are also covered as part of your FMG Replacement House policy but do not need to be included in your area calculation:
- Fences, gardens, walls (including retaining walls, up to $20,000) and gates as well as driveways that form a part of your house on your section
- Asphalt, concrete and artificial turf
- Permanently fixed swimming pools. Please let us know the value of your swimming pool so that we can record this.
If you prefer, you can arrange for a building professional to measure the necessary areas for you. You should ask this person to provide you with a breakdown of the external measurements for all levels of your house, any garages, outbuildings, decks, balconies and verandas.
*Please note this is only a summary of the product and is subject to our specific product documentation. For full details please view our House policy on our Summaries and Downloads page, or our Insuring Your Home FAQs brochure. You can also get a free copy by calling us on 0800 366 466.