Sydney Opera House

This famous performance space sitting on Sydney Harbour is one of the most recognisable buildings in the world. The building was completed in 1973. The final bill was $102 million, almost fifteen times the estimated budget. That’s the equivalent of almost a billion dollars today. Insurance would need to cover natural disaster as well as manmade ones, meaning that the Sydney Opera House’s insurance bill likely runs close to hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The White House

The home of the US president, this iconic building containing 132 rooms, a swimming pool, bowling alley and movie theatre has been blown up plenty of times on the big screen, but if it were to happen in real life it would cost in the region of $100 million to rebuild (factoring in the secret underground bunkers too). Its value is estimated at $110 million by real estate site Movoto.com, but that’s without factoring in its historical value, which would add another $90 million or so to its value.

Brisbane City Hall

The seat of the City Council of Brisbane was opened in 1930, the same

year as the Empire State Building. Built in the Italian Renaissance style,

the total cost of the build, including the furnishings, was just $1 million

though that’s the equivalent of $50 million in today’s terms. Insurers

would want to factor in the types of risk as well as the cost of replacing

the building altogether.

Buckingham Palace

Buckingham palace in the UK is the London home of the Queen. CBS News reports that Buckingham Palace is said to have a market worth of more than $1.6 billion, making it a rather expensive home to insure. Luckily for the Queen, public buildings in the UK cannot be insured, so there are no premiums to pay. If it did burn down, however, she has several dozen other homes to move into.

10 Downing Street

The official residence of the Prime Minister of United Kingdom, this noteworthy address in central London was valued by The Guardian in 2010 at $7.3 million. Guarded as it is around the clock by police, and with bulletproof glass in the windows, risks are mitigated for any building damage, which may reduce the premiums somewhat – though we imagine they’d still be in the tens of thousands each year.

 

Empire State Building

Once the tallest building in the world, this art deco skyscraper was built in 1930 and sold several years ago by Donald Trump for just $57.5 million, even though current estimations value the building at somewhere between $1.5 and $2 billion dollars. Thirty people have jumped from the roof and it’s even been hit by a plane, meaning that this is one building that must have enormous premiums attached to it.

 

Taj Mahal

Factoring in inflation, the Taj Mahal (built in the 1600s) cost the

equivalent of $1 billion dollars today to build. If something catastrophic

were to happen, it would cost in the region of $70 billion today to

rebuild it. However, considered one of the great architectural wonders

of the world (over 1000 elephants were used to transport the building

materials and over 20,000 master craftsmen to build it), it would be

quite impossible to recreate it, which is why it is considered uninsurable.