Is Your Home Inventory Up To Date For 2022?

Do you worry about replacing valuable possessions in the event of a disaster? It’s hard to forget that four major hurricanes hit the eastern seaboard in 2020 alone, and Connecticut saw major tropical storms, tornadoes, and flash flooding in 2021. Ask yourself another simple question. If your house burned down, would you know the replacement value of every asset lost in the fire or ruined by water damage? Are you planning to move in the near future? Did you recently purchase a second property? Have you just completed a renovation project?

If any of the above resonates with you, creating (or updating) your home inventory catalog will go a long way to ease your anxiety. Here’s the why and how of this important home maintenance task.

Benefits of Keeping And Updating Your Home Inventory

A home inventory catalog lists in detail every valuable item inside of your home and their estimated worth, whether jewelry, furniture, electronics, or other things you’d want to replace in the event of a disaster.

Having a detailed list you can hand over to your insurance company after a fire or flood makes the claim process go much smoother, saving you time and headaches. An inventory list also helps prove the extent of your loss to insurance companies so that if disaster strikes, you’re more likely to collect the maximum claim amount.

What Should I Include In My Home Inventory?

You can keep as detailed of a list as you want obviously, but at a minimum, your catalog should include some basic information:

• A detailed description of each item (including make, model, and serial number if possible)
• Estimated value (you can look up items on the internet to get a ballpark if you’re not sure)
• When you purchase something you’d want to replace in the event of flood or fire, make sure you write down the purchase date
• Keep receipts on file

What Are The Steps For Making My Home Inventory List?

Making a home inventory is a fairly easy process, but you will need to make a few choices before you get started. Decide how you’re going to store the data. Are you going to write it all down with pen and paper and store it at a secondary location?

Or perhaps you’re more comfortable using a spreadsheet program (again, bear in mind that you have to be able to access it in the event your hard drive is damaged beyond repair, so file it somewhere safe). Some people use an app and find this makes the whole process faster and easier. (We’ll dig into that later.) Once you have decided on your list creation and storage method, it’s time to get started.

First Things First: Get Organized

Organization is one of the most important aspects of accurately creating or updating your home inventory. As you move through each room in your home, it’s important to be methodical as you make your list. Don’t forget to include things like books, knick-knacks, and other miscellaneous items of value. When you’ve recorded each item by room, you can then break things out by general categories (i.e. artwork, clothes, furniture, electronics, etc.).

Handwriting your list or typing the information into a spreadsheet can help you create an adequate list, but taking photos may be the easiest, quickest way to document your valuables without sacrificing details.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

With the advent of smartphones, people now have a convenient way to document their home inventory in detail without having to write a novel to describe them. You can take a comprehensive inventory using photos, even supplementing them with videos to provide further detail. If possible, take photos of serial numbers. That can make the claims process even less of a headache.

Pro Tip: When making a video, talk about the item in as much detail as possible. It will help establish value if lost, stolen, or damaged.

There’s An App For That!

Ultimately, how you create your home inventory list depends on your preferences, but there are some apps available that offer some pretty great features. For starters, apps are advantageous because they store data in the cloud so you can access the information from anywhere. But there are so many more options and features that can make documenting your valuables a breeze.

There are numerous choices so it’s good to explore which ones are most relevant for you and that best fit your lifestyle. We’ve listed some of our favorites below, highlighting some of their best features:

• Sortly: In addition to assisting users with home inventories, this app makes tracking your valuables during a move a breeze. You can create and print QR labels to stick on boxes that, when scanned with your smartphone, list exactly what’s inside.
• Magic Home Inventory: This Android-only app is especially useful for people who want to organize and document items across multiple properties.
• MyStuff: This is likely the most robust of all home inventory apps, with plenty of space to describe each item in detail. And it’s a great app for people who want to document valuable collections (e.g. books or art).

Calling On The Experts for Help With Restoration and Insurance Claims

After experiencing a devastating loss of valuables to water or smoke and fire damage, most homeowners are almost immediately tasked with making complex decisions for the insurance claim, and that can be overwhelming.

In addition to making your home inventory list, you may also want to consider hiring a restoration specialist who also helps with insurance claims. Riverside Restoration’s 24/7 emergency response capabilities and commitment to excellent customer service have made us the most-trusted name in flood and fire remediation the Westport area has to offer.

If you want the peace of mind that comes with working with an expert, we’d love to talk!