A home inventory can help you weather any number of problems, recovering quickly from burglary or a natural disaster.
But where to start? Here are some ideas from professionals:
- First, get organized. Decide how to categorize your possessions. You may choose to work through your home room by room. Alternatively, some create categories—electronics, furniture, jewelry, etc. Or you may inventory only your most expensive items. It’s up to you.
- Next, decide how to record the information. You can do it the old-fashioned way, writing in a notebook, but these days most people put technology to use. Use a digital camera to take a picture of an item and a closeup of its serial number. Save the information to a flash drive. Consider using a video camera, too. Simply film as you walk through each room in your home, talking about and reading serial numbers for each item.
- Secure the information. Once you have your inventory recorded, decide what to do with it to be sure it stays safe. After all, you don’t want to keep it in your house—that way, you risk the data being destroyed in the event of a fire, tornado or flood. One option is to make more than one copy and keep them in two different places. You could ask a reliable relative to keep one record, and put the other in a safe deposit box. Or you could keep one copy locked in a fireproof safe at home, and lock the other up in a deposit bank.
A home inventory is priceless information when it comes to settling insurance claims, verifying losses on tax returns, and buying the correct amount of insurance.
© Good Sense Security LLC — December 2019