Home Insurance Does homeowners insurance cover code upgrades? Home insurance usually doesn't cover the building code upgrades that may be required when you repair or rebuild a home after its been damaged. You can add this coverage as an endorsement. View Carriers Please enter valid zip Compare top carriers in your area Written by Nupur Gambhir Nupur Gambhir Nupur Gambhir is a content editor and licensed life, health, and disability insurance expert. She has extensive experience bringing brands to life and has built award-nominated campaigns for travel and tech. Her insurance expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Financial Gym, and the end-of-life planning service. Reviewed by John McCormick John McCormick John is the editorial director for CarInsurance.com, Insurance.com and Insure.com. Before joining QuinStreet, John was a deputy editor at The Wall Street Journal and had been an editor and reporter at a number of other media outlets where he covered insurance, personal finance, and technology. Updated on: July 24, 2024 Why you can trust Insure.com Quality Verified At Insure.com, we are committed to providing the timely, accurate and expert information consumers need to make smart insurance decisions. All our content is written and reviewed by industry professionals and insurance experts. Our team carefully vets our rate data to ensure we only provide reliable and up-to-date insurance pricing. We follow the highest editorial standards. Our content is based solely on objective research and data gathering. We maintain strict editorial independence to ensure unbiased coverage of the insurance industry. Even if homeowners insurance covers repairs to your home when you file a claim it likely won’t cover the cost of bringing the house up to current codes if the structure didn’t meet the latest regulations before the damage. However, you can often add this coverage as an endorsement on your home policy. For example, many East Coast homeowners had to elevate their homes or rebuild them after Superstorm Sandy struck in 2012. Houses that needed to be rebuilt had to meet current sea level elevation requirements and all other building codes, and home insurance often didn’t cover it. Make sure you know what your home insurance covers for code upgrades, particularly if you own an older home. Key Takeaways Building code coverage covers the cost of bringing your house up to current codes if a disaster strikes.Building code coverage is not included in homeowners insurance but you can add it to your policy.Adding building code coverage to your policy will come at an additional cost. What is building code coverage? Building code coverage is supplemental insurance coverage that you can add to your homeowners insurance policy. It covers the cost of keeping your home up to code if it’s damaged, but it comes at an additional cost. Without this coverage, you may have to pay for many of the costs of repairing or rebuilding your home on your own. Many consumers don’t realize this isn’t included in their standard coverage, and they don’t learn about it until they file a claim. Unless you’re in the construction trades, you’re probably unaware of how building codes have changed through the years. After all, you’re not required to update the house every time a code is changed. But once you rebuild, all the current regulations come into play. Having building code coverage prepares you for this. Building codes vary by location and often change as the result of disasters, such as earthquakes or floods. Many new codes were created after the 1906 San Francisco, 1933 Long Beach, 1971 San Fernando and the 1994 Northridge earthquakes in California, for instance. New building standards to protect homes better from wildfires were developed after the 2003 and 2007 Southern California wildfires. New construction standards have also been set in flood zones in many parts of the country. Older homes are more expensive to bring up to code. Do you need building code protection? Building code protection is a valuable addition to your homeowners insurance policy so that you never have to pay out of pocket if your local building codes change. It is especially valuable to homeowners who live in an older home, where there is a higher chance the home isn’t up to code. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which offers homeowners with flood insurance $30,000 of “Increased Cost of Compliance” coverage to help pay for the elevation, can help. However, that’s often not enough to cover the cost. How much building code coverage should I have? It depends. Homes that cost over $500,000 may be able to get unlimited coverage. But in some states, the amount you can get is capped. For example, in Florida coverage is capped at 30% of dwelling insurance coverage. Some other home insurance policies, meanwhile, include a small amount of coverage for building code upgrades, and others include no coverage. That doesn’t mean you have to go without. To get coverage for building code upgrades, you can buy law and ordinance insurance as an add-on to your home insurance policy. Review your home insurance policy with your agent to determine whether you have coverage for building code upgrades and if you should purchase additional coverage. You may especially need it if you live in an older home or an area where building codes have changed a lot, such as coastal and earthquake-prone areas. Frequently asked questions Does homeowners insurance include building code coverage? No. Building code coverage is additional coverage that needs to be added on to your homeowners insurance policy. What is code coverage in homeowners insurance? In homeowners insurance, code coverage pays for any repairs you have to make to a home to keep up with local code ordinances. Does insurance pay for code upgrades? Homeowners insurance will only pay for code upgrades if you added on building code protection to your policy. Nupur GambhirManaging Editor | . .Nupur Gambhir is a content editor and licensed life, health, and disability insurance expert. She has extensive experience bringing brands to life and has built award-nominated campaigns for travel and tech. Her insurance expertise has been featured in Bloomberg News, Forbes Advisor, CNET, Fortune, Slate, Real Simple, Lifehacker, The Financial Gym, and the end-of-life planning service. In case you missed it What is HO-6 condo insurance and how much does it cost? 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