Homeowners may be paying well over the odds for their home insurance because they are unaware of the difference between the value of their house or flat and the cost of building it again if it were destroyed. The Buildcost home insurance today shows that huge confusion exists among homeowners relating to the level of insurance cover on their home to meet reinstatement or rebuilding costs. Given this confusion and the fact that only 1 in 10 surveyed had a professional reinstatement valuation carried out on their home raises huge question marks over the accuracy of the home insurance cover that is in place nationwide in Ireland. It found that only 10pc of homeowners surveyed have had a professional reinstatement valuation carried out to calculate the reinstatement cost of their home. Some 90pc of homeowners surveyed either "don't know" how the reinstatement valuation cost was calculated or have "self-calculated" the reinstatement valuation costs of their home while 74pc of homeowners surveyed feel that they are adequately or over insured despite only 10pc having had a professional assessment of their reinstatement valuations. The terms 'House values' and 'reinstatement valuation costs' is causing confusion and are being mixed up. The survey carried out by Buildcost shows clearly that there are huge levels of confusion about how homeowners calculate the reinstatement cost of their home. Speaking about the survey findings, Buildcost Director Liam Langan said "the home reinstatement valuation assesses the cost of reinstating or constructing the home to its original condition in the event of destruction. The main purpose of our survey was to find out how the homeowner's reinstatement valuation was calculated and when it was last reviewed. The comments in the detailed survey that we carried out with 10 homeowners indicate that there is confusion between the term reinstatement valuations and house values and quite often the two are becoming mixed up. This confusion coupled with only 10pc of homeowners having had professional assessments carried out casts a huge question mark over the accuracy of the amounts that homeowners have their homes insured for." Buildcost Director Jason Tully added that "according to the official figures from the Society of Chartered Surveyors (SCSI), actual construction tender prices have fallen by 31pc since 2007 to the first half of 2012. Figures for the second half 2012 are due to be released soon, but we would expect these to indicate a slight increase over this period. Based on the huge reduction in tender prices over the past 5 years, we asked 5 random home owners to review with their insurance companies the impact of reducing their reinstatement valuation by 25pc. The average saving on their insurance premium was E94 and ranged between E43 and E133. These figures are significant especially if the home has been over insured for 5 years or longer." said Jason Tully of Buildcost.