What Does Type of Construction Mean for Home Insurance?
It's the materials your house is built from, like wood frame or masonry, which affects your rebuilding cost and your price.
Free to compare
Frame vs. masonry cost
Wood frame houses generally cost less to insure than brick or concrete block, since frame construction burns faster and sustains more damage in high wind. If you're comparing two houses before closing, ask how construction type affects the quote for each one.
Fire behavior and price
Insurers price construction type partly on how a house behaves in a fire. Masonry walls resist flame longer than wood framing, which can slow a fire's spread. That lower risk is part of why brick and block homes often see lower premiums than wood frame homes of similar size.
Rebuilding cost, not sale price
Dwelling coverage is based on what it costs to rebuild your house, not what you paid for it or what it would sell for. Construction type drives that cost directly. Masonry and custom materials cost more per square foot to replace than standard wood framing.
Check your declarations page
Once your policy is written, the construction type the insurer used is listed on your declarations page, often as frame, masonry, or a similar category. Check that it matches your house. An error here can mean you're paying for the wrong risk or coverage amount.
Since construction type changes both the rebuilding cost and the price insurers charge for it, the same house can come back with different quotes depending on who's pricing that risk. Before the binder your lender needs is locked in, it's worth seeing what another insurer would charge to rebuild this specific house, frame or masonry, rather than accepting the first number.
Does construction type affect anything besides price?
Construction type also shows up in what an insurer will ask for before they write the policy, and sometimes in what they'll cover at all. Older wood frame houses may need an inspection or updated wiring and plumbing before an insurer agrees to the dwelling coverage amount you want. Masonry houses can face their own questions, like the age of the roof or whether the mortar and foundation have been maintained. None of this is unusual, but if you're on a tight closing timeline, knowing your construction type early means you can get the inspection scheduled instead of finding out about it the week before you need a binder.
Construction type also factors into how insurers treat certain perils separately from the base premium. Wood frame houses in areas prone to wildfire or hail sometimes carry higher deductibles for those specific risks, written as a percentage of the dwelling coverage rather than a flat dollar amount. Masonry construction doesn't eliminate this, since a brick house can still have a wood frame roof structure underneath, which is often what actually burns or takes wind damage. If you're comparing quotes, ask what the roof and interior framing are made of, not just the exterior walls, since that's usually what the insurer means by construction type on the quote.
Some lenders ask about construction type directly because it affects how much coverage they'll require you to carry. A lender wants dwelling coverage at least equal to the loan amount or the rebuilding cost, whichever is relevant to them, and a masonry house with a higher per-square-foot rebuild cost might need a higher coverage limit to satisfy that requirement. This is worth checking against the binder before closing, since a coverage amount that looked fine on a wood frame estimate might fall short once the insurer recalculates for masonry.
Renovations and additions can also change what's listed as construction type, even after you've closed. An addition built with different materials than the original structure, or a full re-roof with different materials, can shift how an insurer classifies the house going forward. It's worth asking, once you're past closing, whether any planned work might change your construction category, since that's the kind of thing better handled by calling the insurer ahead of time than discovering at renewal.
What else should I ask about construction type before closing?
Construction type isn't only a pricing input, it's also something insurers verify before they'll write the policy at all. If the house has mixed construction, like a brick exterior over a wood frame, or additions built at different times with different materials, the insurer needs to know which parts are which. This usually comes up during underwriting, sometimes through a simple questionnaire and sometimes through an inspection, and it can take a few days to resolve. If your closing date is fixed, ask the insurer early what they need to confirm construction type so it doesn't hold up the binder.
The year the house was built matters alongside construction type, not instead of it. A wood frame house built in 1950 and one built in 2020 can carry very different risk even though both are classified as frame. Older wiring, older plumbing, and older roofing all affect what an insurer is willing to cover and at what price, and some of that gets flagged specifically because of the construction type review rather than caught separately. If the house you're buying is older, expect more questions, not necessarily a higher price, just more verification before the number is final.
Construction type can also affect which optional coverages make sense to add. A wood frame house in an area with wind or wildfire exposure might be a candidate for coverage that pays to rebuild with fire-resistant materials rather than replacing what burned with the same materials. Masonry houses sometimes carry this as a non-issue for the walls but still need it considered for the roof. This isn't something every policy includes automatically, so if it matters to you, it's worth asking about directly rather than assuming it's bundled into the base dwelling coverage.
Finally, construction type is one of the few details on a policy that's simple to verify and easy to get wrong. The classification comes from what the insurer was told about the house, not always from someone who inspected it in person before binding. If the quote was built on an assumption, frame instead of masonry veneer, for example, that gets corrected either at inspection or at renewal, and the price can move either direction. Confirming construction type on the declarations page against what you actually know about the house is a five-minute check that can save a surprise later.
Before you lock in the binder
Check that the quote lists your house's actual walls and roof framing, not a guess. If it's wrong, ask the insurer to correct it now, before closing, rather than at renewal.
