A multi-location business renewing its commercial property insurance each year rarely looks at the spreadsheet sitting behind the numbers on its declarations page. That spreadsheet, listing every building, its address, and its insured value, is what an insurer actually works from when pricing the policy and deciding how a claim gets paid. What is a statement of values for commercial property insurance? It is the schedule a business or its broker gives an insurer that lists every insured location along with the declared value of the building, its contents, and its stock.
This article looks at what a statement of values typically includes, how insurers use it during underwriting and at renewal, and how it connects to a coinsurance clause that can reduce a claim payment when the figures on it have fallen out of date. It also covers where a business is most likely to run into a request for one.
What Is a Statement of Values?
A statement of values, often shortened to SOV, is a schedule an insured business or its broker provides to a commercial property insurer, listing each insured location along with its declared value for the building, equipment, and stock or inventory kept there. Many insurers use a standard form for this purpose, such as the ACORD 139, though some use their own proprietary template instead.
The schedule is not a separate coverage. It is supporting information an insurer relies on to understand what it is actually insuring, particularly for a business that owns or leases more than one location, where total exposure can be spread unevenly across several buildings of very different age, construction, and use.
What a Statement of Values Typically Includes
A statement of values is usually organized location by location, with each entry carrying a similar set of details:
- Address and location identifier, so each building or unit can be tracked individually across the policy term
- Building value, typically stated on either a replacement cost or an actual cash value basis
- Contents and equipment value, covering furniture, machinery, and other items used to run the business at that location
- Stock or inventory value, which can fluctuate seasonally for a retailer, distributor, or manufacturer
- Construction type and occupancy, since a wood-frame building and a concrete building generally carry different risk profiles even at the same declared value
Values are commonly stated as replacement cost, meaning what it would generally cost to rebuild with similar materials, rather than market value or purchase price, since market value can be driven by land cost and has little connection to what reconstruction would actually cost.
How Insurers Use a Statement of Values
An underwriter typically uses a statement of values to see the full picture of a business's property exposure before setting terms and pricing a policy. For a business with several locations, the schedule shows how much value sits in any one building, which matters for deciding on a combined policy limit and for assessing how a single event, such as a regional storm, could affect more than one insured location at once.
A statement of values also supports decisions about how coverage is structured. Some businesses insure each location separately with its own limit, known as scheduled coverage, while others use blanket coverage, where a single limit applies across multiple locations and can shift depending on which building sustains a loss. A licensed broker can walk through which structure tends to fit a particular business, since the right answer depends on how evenly value is spread across locations and how the business has grown.
How a Statement of Values Connects to Coinsurance and Blanket Coverage
Many commercial property policies include a coinsurance clause, a condition that is generally designed to require a business to insure its property to a set percentage of full replacement cost, commonly 80 or 90 percent. The values declared on a statement of values are what an insurer typically checks that percentage against, so a schedule that understates a building's true replacement cost can leave a business short of the required amount without anyone noticing until a loss happens.
Construction costs have kept moving in recent years, which is part of why insurers ask for an updated schedule rather than relying on figures from several renewals ago. According to Altus Group's 2026 Canadian Cost Guide, construction costs in cities including Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, and Winnipeg rose 4 percent or more year-over-year, and a September 2025 Canadian Underwriter article, republished by the Insurance Institute of Canada, noted that rising construction costs are a factor that can leave commercial properties underinsured. A business that has not reviewed its declared values recently may be carrying a coinsurance gap it does not know about.
Some insurers offer a stated or agreed value endorsement, which is generally designed to suspend the coinsurance calculation for the policy term provided the declared value stays at or above the figure both parties agreed to. Even with that kind of endorsement in place, the agreed figure still comes from the same statement of values process, so accuracy on the schedule matters either way.
Benefits of a Statement of Values
Keeping an accurate statement of values gives a business a clearer picture of its own property exposure, not just a document an insurer asks for. Reviewing it at renewal is a natural prompt to check whether a building's value, equipment list, or inventory levels still match what the business actually has in place, which can surface gaps before they turn into a coinsurance shortfall after a loss.
An accurate schedule can also make a claim easier to work through, since an insurer adjusting a loss at a specific location has a documented starting point for that property's values rather than having to reconstruct them after the fact. For a growing business adding locations or renovating existing ones, the statement of values is often the simplest way to keep an insurer's understanding of the business current.
Where You'll Come Across a Statement of Values
A statement of values most often comes up at renewal, when an insurer or broker asks a business to confirm or update the declared values for every insured location. It also surfaces when a business adds a new location, completes a major renovation, or finishes a significant equipment purchase that changes what is actually at risk at a given address.
A lender financing a commercial building, or a landlord confirming a tenant's commercial property insurance under a lease, may also ask to see the schedule behind a declared building value. It can come up again during a claim, when an adjuster compares the values on file against what a damaged location actually contained, and during a broader review of how a coinsurance clause applies across a business's locations.
Talk to a Licensed Broker About Your Statement of Values
Keeping a statement of values current is one of the more overlooked ways a multi-location business protects itself against an unpleasant surprise after a loss. A broker can help review whether the declared values across a business's locations still reflect current rebuilding costs, including what commercial property insurance typically includes and how it fits inside broader business insurance in Canada. Get a commercial insurance quote to start that review with a licensed broker.
Coverage details, valuation methods, and schedule requirements vary by insurer and by the specific policy wording in force, and only a review of the actual policy documents and a licensed broker can confirm what applies to a particular business.
