Insurance Valuations · Australia wide
PT Property Reports prepares Reinstatement Cost Assessments for strata managers and Owners Corporations Australia wide. Every figure is built up from construction cost by Certified Quantity Surveyors, not estimated from a rate.
01 Insurance valuations
We do one thing. We work out what it would cost to rebuild a strata scheme today, and we set that figure out clearly enough that a committee, a broker or an insurer can rely on it.
Strata managers carry the risk of a sum insured that has quietly drifted out of date. Construction costs move, schemes get remediated and extended, and a number set several renewals ago stops being true long before anyone notices. An independent Reinstatement Cost Assessment replaces that guess with a measured position, documented well enough to put in front of the owners.
02 The distinction
Market valuation
It reflects location, land value, demand and the state of the market on the day it is written. It is the right number for a sale, a mortgage or a dispute over price. It has almost nothing to do with what a builder would charge to put the building back.
Reinstatement Cost Assessment
Demolition, professional fees, cost escalation across the policy period, and the trades and materials the job would actually consume. This is the figure a building policy is meant to be set against, and it is the one we assess.
Insure against the wrong number and a total loss leaves the scheme at risk of falling short. Most building policies apply averaging, so the shortfall bites on partial claims too, and it is almost always discovered at the point when nothing can be done about it.
03 Method
We build a proper picture of the property before any costing begins: construction type, structure, finishes, services, common property, access and the site constraints that would shape a rebuild. Nothing is assumed where it can be established.
The building is broken into its functional areas and each is measured on its own terms. A single rate is never stretched across the whole building.
Each functional area is priced against current construction cost data and cross checked against comparable projects, so the result reflects the market the scheme would actually rebuild in.
You receive a clear document setting out the assessed sum insured, what sits inside it, and the assumptions behind it. Written to be handed straight to the insurer, the broker or the committee.
04 Inclusions
05 Standards
Valuers assess what property is worth. Quantity Surveyors assess what building costs. A reinstatement figure is a construction cost question, so it belongs with the profession that prices construction for a living.
Every assessment is prepared by a Certified Quantity Surveyor and member of the Australian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, and the practice carries professional indemnity insurance. AIQS guidance is that insurance assessments be reviewed every three years, and sooner where a scheme has been altered, extended or remediated.
06 Questions
An insurance valuation, properly called a Reinstatement Cost Assessment, assesses what it would cost to rebuild a property from the ground up at today's construction costs. It sets the sum insured on the building policy. It is not an assessment of market value, and it does not include the land.
AIQS guidance is every three years. We would look at it sooner where the scheme has been remediated, extended or significantly altered, or where construction costs in that market have moved sharply since the last assessment.
Most building policies apply averaging, sometimes called co-insurance. Where the sum insured falls short of the true reinstatement cost, the insurer can reduce the settlement in proportion, so even a partial claim is paid at less than it costs to repair. The gap falls to the owners, and by then it cannot be fixed.
They answer a different question. Market value reflects what a buyer would pay, and online calculators apply a broad rate to a floor area without ever seeing the building. Neither accounts for demolition, professional fees, cost escalation, or the access and staging constraints of a specific site.
Our Melbourne office covers metropolitan Melbourne and regional Victoria, and our Fremantle office covers Perth and Western Australia. We prepare insurance valuations for strata schemes Australia wide.
The property address, the current sum insured and the renewal date. Plans, the plan of subdivision and records of any recent works help, and we will let you know if we need access to the property. We can usually proceed without all of it.
07 Contact
Melbourne
443 King Street
West Melbourne VIC 3003
Perth
3/201 High Street
Fremantle WA 6160
Tell us the scheme address and the renewal date and we will come back with a fee proposal and a timeframe.
