Creating A Household Inventory For Insurance

It’s nearly time to renew our home owners insurance again, which got me thinking about all of the stuff we have in our home. We had taken photos several years ago to create a household inventory but to be honest it is now entirely out of date. Since then we’ve had two kids, furnished a home, updated a few appliances and accumulated other bits and pieces. It’s pretty obvious that we’d have a bit of a hard time proving what we had if faced with something bad happening to our home (fire or flood). I know some insurance companies require you to be able to prove what you owned before they will settle a claim. You may be insured for a certain amount but may not be able to claim it if you are unable to demonstrate the items you owned.

I’ve been reading up on how to create an inventory of our household items and would like to share with you what I’ve learned. 

Types of inventories

1. Video. In my opinion, this would be the easiest way to capture all the items in your home. It’s quick and you can discuss/describe the items as you go. Just grab a camcorder and sweep through your house filming everything you see. Be sure to get some wide shots to capture everything in a room. Also open up the cupboards and film what’s inside each. Zoom in on the model and serial number and you won’t have to go back to the item and record these manually.

2. Digital photographs. This will take a bit more time than video but it’s still a great way to document what you have. You may need to add a description of the item in a separate document since there is really no way to document it otherwise. 

3. Spreadsheet. This requires manually entering each item into a spreadsheet (or on to a piece of paper) and including a detailed description. This would be the most time consuming option. To help make it a little less daunting the Insurance Information Institute offers a free online home inventory program called Know Your Stuff. I haven’t used it to manage my own inventory but I have evaluated it and it looks pretty straight forward. You need to create an account and once logged in you can start capturing your inventory room by room. This software allows you to view your inventory as a whole or sorted by room or by category. You can export your inventory to Excel so you have it on your computer and you can also print reports. There is even an option to have reminders sent to you via email for updating and managing your stuff.

Taking inventory 

Avoid haphazardly walking around your home, yard and garage. It’s best if you take an organized approach to capturing your items. This is best done by taking it one room at a time. Here are somethings to pay special attention to as they can be easily overlooked (this list is by no means exhaustive).

• book shelves
• closets
• drawers
• filing cabinets
• CDs/DVDs/Videos
• books
• clothing
• jewelery
• collections (stamps, dolls, glasses etc.)
• appliances
• art and craft supplies
• hobby supplies
• garden and grilling equipment
• tools
• sporting equipment
• seasonal items
• computer software
• medicine

Storage of the inventory list     

Once you have completed your inventory it’s important to give some thought as to how and where you want to store it. Some storage media you might consider are:

• DVD
• CD
• USB flash drive
• external hard drive
• notebook

Ideally your inventory list should be stored outside of your home. If your home is damaged by fire it’s unlikely that your computer or filing system will withstand it. Here are some ideas for off site storage:

• safety deposit box
• in your desk at work
• at a family member’s house 

If for some reason you cannot store your list outside of your home it may be worth looking into a fire proof safe. We bought one years ago, it was relatively inexpensive but gives us some peace of mind.

Other things to keep in mind

• Add authenticity to your inventory list by catalogueing receipts and warranties, either the physical pieces of paper or scan/photograph the documents.  
• Take note of make, model and serial numbers.
• For jewelery, consider getting the items appraised and storing the appraisal off site as well.  
• Update your list annually when it’s time to renew your home owners insurance or after a big purchase.

See also:

House Maintenance: Spring

Got Books? Tips To Decluttering and Organizing Your Personal Library

Photo courtesy of: *spo0ky*

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Tuesdays are Home & Organizing day at Serene Journey. We will share tips and ideas that we have learned and applied to the organizing and running of our home. If you have any suggestions for this series feel free to drop us an email or leave them in the comments.