How to Do a Home Inventory for Your Home Insurance Policy

Everyone wants to maximize their home insurance policy. Just how do you do that? First, you have to know that your home insurance policy does not only cover the house itself, but also your personal properties in it. In case of fire, flood or other disasters, your home insurance policy can replace your lost or damaged properties.

With that, you have to know that keeping an inventory of all your personal properties in your home is very important when you are filing for a home insurance claim. It is a clear proof of all your properties that need to be ensured. This includes items that have relatively high value, such as appliances and furniture. Usually, a home inventory also includes photos of the items. So how do you make an inventory? Here are some tips to help you.

1. Categorize your properties. Listing every single piece of clothing you have will take too much of your time and effort, not to mention your insurance company’s too. It is best to just put an estimate value to all your clothing and other similar items such as jewelry.
2. Create your home inventory right away. You will never know when disaster will strike your property, so it is best to have your inventory ready, to have proof that you have actually acquired the items in your house. As you buy more properties, you can immediately add them to your inventory so that you will not miss any important thing and also so that you will not have a difficult time rebuilding and updating your inventory. When it’s time to file a home insurance claim on your property, you will not have worries.
3. Aside from categorizing items, you can also group them room by room. Aside from creating a more organized inventory, making your list in such a way also systematizes your inventory method. It will make you task easier. To further strengthen the details of the items in your inventory, you can also take note of the manufacturer and serial number of items that have such details. This will help hasten the approval of your home insurance claim.
4. Keep the receipts of your properties. These are strong proofs when you are filing a home insurance claim.
5. Take photos of your properties. Keeping a good documentation of your properties will make it easier to get your home insurance claim, in case something happens. It is up to you how you want to store the photos. Keeping a digital file of your properties, as well as printing out a hard copy will ensure that you have a safe and secure documentation of all your properties.
6. If you have the equipment, videotape your inventory list. A fast way to create an inventory is to walk through your house and speak about the properties in it while recording it on videotape. Afterwards, you can watch the videotape and write down all the properties you mentioned. Your video will also work as a good documentation when filing for a home insurance claim.