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OPINION: Being one of the recent Port Hill fire evacuees I have this week reconsidered my current insurance levels and whether they are still relevant. This is a useful exercise for most of us – even those living outside Christchurch.

Since the Canterbury earthquakes of 2010-11 most house insurance policies have moved to sum-assured (basically an agreed value). For example, you declare your house is worth $600,000 and insure it for this amount.

Note if your house is actually worth less (for example, the cost to rebuild it is $450,000) you are likely to only receive $450,000 from the insurer.

So there is definite risk around the number you assign to the value of your house. Too low and you might not have enough to rebuild a like-for-like house; too much and you are paying higher premiums and might not get that amount back at claim time.

The most accurate way to have the correct amount insured is to get a registered valuation on your house and request a replacement cost value.

But first, here is a guide to give you a rough indication.

For a standard housing company-type build, assuming a non-complex foundation (that is, nothing other than Technical Category 1 land), a cost of $2000 per square metre is probably reasonable. Smaller and very big houses could change this figure by plus or minus $500 per sqm.

For an architectural or hill build, allow $4000 per sqm. With very high-specification houses you are probably safer using $5000 per sqm.

So a 200sqm house in a subdivision might have a build cost of $400,000, whereas if it was architecturally designed you are looking at more like $800,000.

Then you also have to think about contents insurance.

Your starting point for the contents of a medium-sized house is probably a total value of $80,000 – but I would say this is low.

A guide from an insurance company has new replacement costs at $134,000 and high quality and/or specified items at $250,000.

Most insurers will provide a worksheet you can use to give you a cost indication of the value of your contents.