Accessing a variable outside of an 'if' statement

Question

How can I make insuranceCost available outside the if statement?

if (this.comboBox5.Text == "Third Party Fire and Theft")
{
    double insuranceCost = 1;
}

Answer 1

Define it outside of the if statement.

double insuranceCost;
if (this.comboBox5.Text == "Third Party Fire and Theft")
        {
          insuranceCost = 1;
        }

If you are returning it from the method then you can assign it a default value or 0, otherwise you may get an error, "Use of unassigned variable";

double insuranceCost = 0;

or

double insuranceCost = default(double); // which is 0.0

Answer 2

In addition to the other answers, you could just inline the if in this case (parenthesis added only for clarity):

double insuranceCost = (this.comboBox5.Text == "Third Party Fire and Theft") ? 1 : 0; 

Replace 0 with whatever value you want to initialize insuranceCost to, if the condition does not match.

Answer 3

    double insuranceCost = 0; 
    if (this.comboBox5.Text == "Third Party Fire and Theft") 
    { 
        insuranceCost = 1; 

    } 

Declare it before the if statement, giving a default value. Set the value inside the if. if you don't give a default value to the double, you will get an error at compile time. For example

double GetInsuranceCost()
{
        double insuranceCost = 0; 
        if (this.comboBox5.Text == "Third Party Fire and Theft") 
        { 
            insuranceCost = 1; 

        } 
        // Without the initialization before the IF this code will not compile
        return insuranceCost;
}