How to Make a Property Insurance Inventory List

If you have insured your house, apartment or condominium, you have already made the right choice. Your home is probably full of your personal possessions, jewelry, valuable items, and other possessions that are valuable to you. But if an unforeseen event occurs, only a few people will be able to remember all the items kept in their homes. What will definitely help you is a property insurance inventory list, and we are going to talk about it now.

What a Property Inventory List Is

It has several name variations: property / home inventory list / worksheet. Therefore, if you encounter similar names in other articles, keep in mind that they mean the same. So, now let's figure out what the property inventory list is.

This list is a checklist of all your valuables that you have in your home. You need to compile this worksheet yourself. However, this does not mean that you only need to add the items’ names to it. Their cost, as well as some other data, is important information for both you and your provider. The more information you gather about your belongings, the more complete and accurate the list will be. We will talk about how to correctly compile this list a little later in our article.

When You Need to Make Such a List

You can choose any time convenient for you to compile this list. But the best solution to start this procedure is right now.

You might think that preparing such a list can take a huge amount of your time. You are probably right. But first, you do not have to write down all of your items. Start small. Enter only a part of the items that you consider more valuable to you and enter the rest gradually. Moreover, do not forget to write down new items and their details in the list. It is best to do this right after you have purchased them.

What a Property Inventory List For

Did you know that only about 50% of all home insurance policyholders keep records of their personal belongings? Yes, sparsely. After all, not everyone wants to waste time on this procedure. Whenever you purchase an item, you need to make some data in your inventory list. But why is it that necessary?

The most important reason is that you can always show your company this list and notify it about all your personal belongings and their value. For example, in the event of a robbery or a fire, the company will consider the data you have provided. Thus, it will be able to reimburse you the most accurate amount that satisfies your losses.

Moreover, if you have recently purchased an apartment or a private house, such a list will help you determine such things as: what type of insurance you need and how much coverage you want.

However, your company will not reimburse losses for all items on your list. There are certain exceptions; you should check with your insurance agent or contact your provider directly. You may need to purchase separate coverage for some personals.

What Information an Inventory List of Your Personal Belongings Needs to Have

One of the important pieces of information that you need to add to your list is the price. However, you probably have so many items at home that you can hardly remember the cost of everything, especially if you bought them a long time ago. If it is difficult to name the price, then describe this item. A few words will be enough to describe it, but you can do this in more detail.

So, here are some questions you need to ask yourself to make entering information into your worksheet easier:

• What brand and model does the item have?
• Does it have a serial number? If yes, what is this serial number?
• When did I purchase this item?
• Where exactly did I purchase this item?
• What was the item’s price when I bought it?
• What is the approximate item’s value? (if you cannot accurately determine the price)
• Is there any other important information I can add to the list? (for example, a description or any other additional notes)

You also can group items. For example, first, write down all items from your bedroom, then from the kitchen, living room, and so on.

What Else You Might Need

One of the great solutions would be video recording. Capture all your belongings at home on camera. The easiest way is to record all the rooms in your house one by one. Show their model and serial numbers. This is a great visual example to help your company (or police) more accurately determine your losses in the event of an accident. However, remember that it is not enough just to shoot a video. Your records are just an addition to the list we talked about above.

What else can you do to document your personal belongings? Take their photos. You can take photos of your rooms and belongings instead of videos, but you can also keep the photos as an addition to the worksheet and videos. Do everything in the same way as in the previous case. Shoot your rooms, separately shoot the serial numbers of certain items. Open the closet and take a picture of your clothes in it.

And one more thing: do not throw away your receipts. Keep them with your list so you always have proof of the items’ values. If you do not want to collect papers, just take photos of the receipts.

Consider Designated Application

To make it easier to list possessions, there are various applications allowing to compile electronic lists. Some insurance companies may offer you to use their own applications. However, if your provider did not offer you such a program, you can find it independently. Where can you find such platforms? Directly on your smartphone in the app store. Below we have presented some of such platforms that will help you with this daunting task.

Take seriously a procedure such as making a personal belongings worksheet. Don't let the grass grow under your feet because unpleasant situations are not going to wait for you to finish listing all your items. And do not forget to keep your list up to date. Add new personals and remove those that you no longer use. We hope our article has provided you with the fullest understanding of what a property insurance inventory list is and how you can make it correctly.