Statement of Values (SOV): a risk manager's guide for North America and Europe

A statement of values (SOV) is the schedule of every location, building and asset an organization asks its insurers to cover, with the value insured at each one. For a multinational risk manager it is the single most important data set of the property renewal: underwriters price from it, catastrophe models run on it, and claims are settled against it.

This guide explains what an SOV contains, how expectations differ between North America and Europe, the errors that cost the most at renewal, and how to collect values from many entities without losing weeks to spreadsheets. A free SOV template is available at the end of the page.

What is a statement of values?

An SOV is a structured list, usually a spreadsheet, with one row per insured location. Each row describes where the location is, what it is used for, how it is built and what it is worth. Brokers send it to insurers as part of the renewal submission, and it often becomes part of the policy schedule.

Because insurers rely on it to set premiums, limits and deductibles, an inaccurate SOV has direct financial consequences: undervalued locations can trigger underinsurance or average clauses at claim time, while overvalued or poorly described ones push premiums up.

The core fields every SOV should contain

Location and identification

• A unique location ID that stays the same from one year to the next
• Insured entity or subsidiary
• Full street address, city, postal code, state or province, and country
• Latitude and longitude, which make catastrophe modelling far more accurate than an address alone

COPE information

Underwriters assess property risk using COPE data: Construction, Occupancy, Protection and Exposure.

• Construction: the building class (in North America typically the ISO 1–6 classes, from Frame to Fire Resistive), year built and year of last major update
• Occupancy: what the site is used for — office, warehouse, manufacturing, retail, data center
• Protection: sprinklers, fire alarms, security and distance to the fire service
• Exposure: neighboring hazards and natural catastrophe exposure such as flood, windstorm or earthquake

Values

• Building (replacement cost)
• Improvements and betterments
• Machinery and equipment
• Stock or inventory (often an average or peak value)
• Business interruption, the loss of income if the site stops operating
• Total insured value (TIV) per location and for the whole portfolio

North America vs Europe: what changes

The structure of an SOV is broadly the same on both sides of the Atlantic, but practices differ in ways that matter when one program covers both regions.

• Construction classes: US and Canadian insurers commonly expect ISO construction classes, while European insurers often describe construction in local terms (for example masonry, concrete, steel frame, sandwich panels). Keep one consistent classification and map local descriptions to it.
• Valuation basis: replacement cost is the norm in North America; in Europe the basis can vary by country and policy wording (new replacement value, reinstatement value, or indemnity value). Record the basis used for each location.
• Currencies: a transatlantic program mixes USD, CAD, EUR, GBP and CHF. Store the local currency, the exchange rate and the reporting currency, and use the same rate date for every entity.
• Units: square feet in the US, square meters in Canada and Europe. Name the unit in the column header.
• Local policies: many European programs combine a master policy with local admitted policies. Link each location to the policy number that covers it so values reconcile with local premiums.
• Data protection: when SOVs include contact names or employee counts for EU sites, GDPR applies to how that information is collected and shared.

The most costly SOV errors

1. Values copied forward from last year without indexation, which leaves the portfolio underinsured after inflation.
2. Missing or approximate geocodes, which force catastrophe models to make conservative assumptions.
3. Inconsistent construction or occupancy descriptions across entities.
4. Business interruption values that are missing or not split by location.
5. Locations added or sold during the year that never reach the SOV.
6. Several versions of the spreadsheet circulating by email, with no clear final version.

How to collect values from many entities

For a group with dozens or hundreds of sites in several countries, the hardest part of the SOV is not the format — it is getting accurate, complete and timely data from every local contact.

1. Start from last year's validated SOV and send each entity only its own locations to review.
2. Use one template with fixed columns, drop-down lists and units, so answers come back comparable.
3. Ask local contacts to confirm or update values, and to explain any large variation.
4. Consolidate centrally, convert currencies with one rate, and compare against the previous year.
5. Keep a history of every change so you can answer underwriter questions quickly.

Collexter was built by risk professionals to run exactly this workflow: it sends each entity its own values to complete, tracks who has answered, consolidates the results and keeps a full history from one renewal to the next — replacing the round of spreadsheets and emails.

Download the free SOV template

Our template includes the fields above, ISO construction classes as a drop-down, automatic totals for total property and total insured value, and example rows for the US, Canada and France. Enter your email below to download it.