At least once a year, every home needs a new home inventory. Homeowners who live in hurricane-prone areas like Florida, coastal Alabama, Louisiana, or Texas are used to making a home inventory on a regular basis. However, homeowners who live in the Midwest or other parts of the country where hurricanes are rare may think they don't need one. This is not true at all!
No matter where in the country you live, you need a home inventory because fire, flood, wind or tornado damage, theft, and lost or stolen items can happen to anyone at any time. Dealing with insurance agents can be a nightmare if you don't have an inventory of your home. This is especially true if you are trying to remember everything that was lost, broken, or stolen in your home while talking to an insurance agent on the phone. The best way to make sure all of your household items are replaced is to keep some kind of home inventory to help you better replace these things.
There are many ways to make a list of all the things in a home. One of the easiest ways to make an inventory is to walk from room to room with a notebook and pen and write down everything that would or should be replaced if it got broken or lost. Taking an inventory this way takes time, but it lets you look at everything in the room and estimate their values, which should be written down on an inventory list. The next step up from pen and paper would be to write the home inventory on a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or just in a Microsoft Word file.
This is probably the best way to keep track of what you have at home if you don't have access to more high-tech ways to do it. Just set the date and time on your 35mm or digital camera and go from room to room taking pictures of each room. Once the pictures have been developed, you can label them with information about the items in each room.
Many people also use video cameras to record what each room looks like at a certain time and date as they walk through the house. This is a great way to get a live-action picture of how the things look now, and it's easy to give it to an insurance company.
When making an inventory, you should always keep the receipts for big purchases and keep them with the inventory. The more you can tell the Homeowners insurance company about how much an item cost and when it was bought, the more likely it is that you will get a price close to what it cost. If you can, you should also write down where the item was bought, the model number, and the name of the company that made it.
Also, it's important to always write the date and time on the inventory, which is a great reason to use a still or video camera. Even though the Homeowners insurance company is supposed to be on the insured's side, they will estimate costs as low as possible to save money. So, make a smart home inventory so that things can be replaced quickly and at full cost.
Remember that you don't have to make an inventory of things that you wouldn't miss if they were lost or broken, like a paperback book or a $10 pair of flip-flops. However, if you are an antique book collector with a large collection or a shoe collector with shoes worth hundreds of dollars, you should make an inventory of these things.
Furniture, artwork, appliances, electronics, large sports equipment, and large outdoor equipment should all be on the list. It's probably a good idea to list or at least take pictures of clothes, home decor items, tool sets, kitchenware, and even exercise equipment. However, the main rule of thumb is to know the value of your own personal property to decide if it's worth adding to a home inventory list.
After the home inventory has been made, it should be put somewhere else. This could be kept at a family member's or neighbor's house, but a safety deposit box or a fire- and flood-proof security box is the safest place for a home inventory list.
