why does it matter how many corners a house has when buying house insurance?

I have never heard of this, and I’ve represented LOTS of insurance companies.

You could always ask THEM why!

Is it possible that they’re trying to determine a shape?

This seems really strange to me. I would probably ask whoever’s quoting me why they needed something like that, just out of curiosity. I’m suprised that all three companies asked such a bizarre question.

NEVER asked that in all the years I have been an agent!

It has to do with reconstruction costs. A builder I know bought my former home and paid a lot for the insurance because his carrier asked this question and the home had a lot of corners.

They use it to estimate cost to rebuild. More corners, higher rebuilding costs.

It is a little hidden question in the new cost estimator program. Well, the question really has to do with shape, square, rectangle, irregular, very irregular.
The more corners a building has, the more expensive it is to rebuild.
We don’t ask, we get measurements from the town & get our own pictures.