I was tempted once to burn down our house for the £250,000 insurance value and go to live on an island paradise somewhere.
Then someone mentioned that the insurance company doesn't actually just hand over a fat cheque, and I realised that rebuilding would be around £300,000.
So I just carried on living there. Seemed the sensible option.
You need to update your policy.
We get the insurance co. to evaluate the cost of rebuilding every 5-10 years and make sure that our coverage will indeed 'cover' it as well as contents replacement. Its fine to rebuild a house but if you do not have enough left to buy a bed, couch, TV, fridge, stove etc. then its going to be a pretty sparse existance for quite a while.
,,,,, and,,,,, it is spelled out quite well in the policy that funds will be handed out as rebuilding takes place. The first amounts will ONLY be the value of house and contents as it stood before it was destroyed. Further payments will occur once you prove that you are rebuilding and only so much as to cover those further costs. If I never rebuild on the same property I get no more money. If I choose to sell the property and build elsewhere other restrictions apply.
Also, if my house burned down and I decieded to rebuild AND add an attached garage, the insurance co. would not cover the price of the addition.
IOW its particularily designed NOT to make you richer but to instead restore your situtaion to as close to what it was beforehand as possible.
Nothing so far indicates that this did not apply to Silverstein Properties or Larry Silverstein himself.