Moneysupermarket partners with BCIS

Moneysupermarket.com has partnered with BCIS, the Building Cost Information Service of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), to enhance the way in which its buildings policies are quoted.

The BCIS ‘Lookup Service’ allows aggregators like moneysupermarket.com to obtain instant, real time estimates of a property’s rebuilding cost, ensuring that homeowners are best placed to purchase the right level of cover at the right price.

Easily accessible using industry standard XML technology, this live service calculates the rebuilding cost of a residential property given minimal details of the property and is based on the BCIS rebuilding cost models already accepted as industry standard by surveyors and loss adjustors.

Around the subject of rebuilding costs, there has been much confusion among insurance purchasers, forcing many down the bedroom rated route.

Andrew Thompson, international development and data director at BCIS explains: “Where homeowners cannot provide the rebuilding cost of their home (or the floor area to allow the cost to be calculated), they have had no option but to go for a bedroom rated buildings policy offering capped or unlimited sum insured. However, homeowners can only be assured of the best deal if they obtain both bedroom rated and sum insured based quotations. The BCIS service allows just that and does not need the floor area of the property to return a rebuilding cost value.

Julie Owens, head of home insurance at moneysupermarket.com said: “We are proud to offer our customers a tool that helps them assess the rebuild cost of their property more accurately, rather than using market value, which can lead to significant under or over-insurance.

"As well as enabling us to return premiums priced at a level that accurately reflects the rebuild value of the property, this ‘lookup service’ is a quick and easy way for our customers to feel more confident that the insurance policy they take out will cover the cost of rebuilding their home should the worst happen. ”