How to Conduct a Home Inventory

How to Conduct a Home Inventory

Conducting a home inventory is perhaps one of the most important things that you can do as a homeowner. This is something that you will want to have in the event you ever have to file a claim with your homeowners insurance. It can also help you to determine if you have the right coverage in place on your policy.

When you complete a home inventory in Florida, there are several components to include.

Go Room by Room

It’s important to cover every room in your home. Living room, kitchen, bedrooms, closets, attic – it should all be included in the inventory. You may want to sit down with a clipboard and list all of the rooms in your home, and think about all of the closets and other storage areas. Sheds, garage, and everything should be inventoried.

Take Photos

Bring a camera along with you. Take photos of everything. If your camera allows it, put a date stamp on the photos. This will tell an adjuster when you took the photo so that there are no issues with a claim. For example, you don’t want an insurance adjuster accusing you of just going out and buying something expensive and including it in the inventory. If the photo is dated 2016 and you don’t make the claim until 2017, it’s reasonable that it’s still in your home.

Add Values

Your homeowners insurance in Florida is going to have a value. You will want to make sure the policy is capable of providing full replacement on what you have in your home, whether its furniture, artwork, or anything else.

Once you have your inventory completed, you will want to add values to everything. If you have invoices or receipts, attach these to the inventory. You may also want to have certain items valued by an appraiser. This can include antiques, collectibles, and expensive artwork.

Store a Copy

You will want to have a copy of your home inventory available at any time. This is particularly important if you need to file a claim with your home insurance company. They are going to want to see the inventory so that they can start to associate values. You creating a list of everything that was damaged or stolen may not be sufficient. Your goal is to ease the claim along as fast as possible, and an adjuster will want to see the inventory if you have one.

This means you will want to make it readily available. It can be stored online in the cloud. This way you can access it no matter what. If you do store a paper copy in the home, do so in a fireproof safe. This way, if your home catches fire, you still have access to the inventory.

The last thing you ever want to deal with is an insurance claim because it means something has happened to your home. However, you can make everything go a lot faster if you have a home inventory.