The last few Insurance Blogs have reviewed the important issue of making sure your homeowner or renters policy covers all of your personal property. The Blogs have covered some basics for documenting those special or high value items. Now it’s time to think about documenting you entire household inventory.
This is where you need to use your imagination and consider what would really be lost in the worst case scenario. Consider if you will for a moment, that your home is burned to the ground and everything inside it is gone. What have you actually lost and how much will it take to replace everything, including your children’s underwear?
You may be the type of family who saves everything and stocks up for the future, you may be the kind of family who eliminates unneeded items routinely. Either way, what you have when your home burns down is what you expect your insurance policy to compensate you for when you make a claim. Either way, you should be ready to prove to your insurance company just exactly what you own and have lost in the event of a covered claim.
I update my household inventory when we make a major purchase or acquire something of a special value. I also update the general household inventory once a year. I usually, check the household inventory several weeks before the homeowner or renters policy renews so that any changes can be made before the policy renews.
The best way I have found to start the process is to consider every room in the home. Room by room I go in and sit down and look around, and make a list. For example, in my daughter’s room I list the furniture, decorations, bedding, clothing, toys and any other items inside her room. I then move to my bedroom, my son’s room, the bathroom, etc. Until every room has a list of it’s general contents.
With all the room-by-room lists I can then determine where the high value or special items in our home are located. These lists will help me in the event of a home burglary because I will be able to review where certain things were located and then be able to notice if these items are missing from the home after a burglary.
The next Blog will focus on what to do with the lists and how to put the Household Inventory together.
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Related Blogs:
- Household Inventory–Getting Started.
- Household Inventory–At Least Make A List.
- Is Your Personal Property Insured For Replacement Value?
- Insurance Appraisals
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