Create a Home Inventory Now for Insurance Later
Updated August 26th, 2011
With hurricane season upon us on the east coast and fires raging on the west, we’re reminded to take a look at how prepared we are for an emergency. One easily overlooked check-list item is an up-to-date list of your belongings, or a home inventory. Should the worst happen, you'll need it to recount everything that's damaged or missing and substantiate insurance claims.
A home inventory should included a detailed list of your belongings, complete with descriptions, photos, videos, estimated or acquired value (receipt if you have it) and dates of purchase—basically anything that can provide proof of ownership and condition prior to loss. While it does take time to catalog the information, home inventory software programs can make taking inventory of your belongings easier and generate reports when you need them. They can also help you to assess if you are under- or over-insured.
If you don’t have a home inventory already, start by checking out one of the free, printable inventory checklists from companies like State Farm, and Farmer's Insurance. They provide a quick low-tech guide to accounting for your possessions.
But a better solution is one of the web-based home inventory management services that let you record relevant information, including photo and receipts, and store it for you safely online for access anywhere at anytime.
One drawback to the web-based services is that matching your photos with your inventory items is a manual process. With phone-based apps, you simply walk around your home taking pictures and entering pertinent information at the same time.
Whether you go the old fashion route and write out a list, use an app or go with one of the following web-based programs, it goes without saying that you should keep a copy of your home inventory off the premises. This could be as simple of printing out a copy and mailing it to a relative, emailing a copy or keeping the data stored online (see our recommended online storage sites). While you hope to never use it, you'll be glad you spent the time should you ever need it.
Web-based home inventory solutions
Know Your Stuff Home Inventory
This free service from the Insurance Information Institute captures all of the information you need for your detailed home inventory, including photos, scanned receipts and appraisals.
StuffSafe
This free basic service lets you enter detailed item information including serial number, condition and item purchase and replacement costs. Add photos, scanned receipts and appraisals and print or download a report any time.
eProoft
This flexible service lets you do a video walk-through, upload images, appraisals and receipts and generate a variety of reports. The free account limits storage to 100MB. Pay $39.99 per year for unlimited storage.
Phone-based home inventory solutions
AllState Digital Locker for iPhone is free for anyone, even if you're not an Allstate customer. It lets you snap shots and enter basic information on price, room and category. It also has the ability to search items in its database by name or barcode to help out with the details, but in our testing, we couldn't get that feature to work. There is no online storage, but item list can be emailed from the application.
Inventory Droid for Android phones ($4.99) lets you capture detailed information about all of your property, including photos, and saves entry time by scanning bar codes to pull in key information automatically. There is no online storage, but you can export your information to an CSV (Excel) file or an Inventory Droid backup.
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Discussion 
Up to the insurers
When you take out a home contents insurance policy, you typically need to make a list of all the items that are to be insured. Using these apps to keep track of additional items that you purchase is great, but most policies also have a value limit like $20,000 which is set at the time of you signing your policy. This means that insurers are most likely not going to cover the extra items that you are keeping track of with your new lists or apps if they exceed the limit that has been set.
Hello Irene!
Found some helpful info for tracking the storm here…
http://mylifescoop.com/featured-stories/2011/08/the-best-resources-for-severe-weather-news.html
Tracy
Another Option
In your article you mention online storage sites and organizational tools.
How about http://www.lifeelephant.com/
“Life happens – vacations, emergencies, illness, natural disasters, distance from family, etc. And in today’s paperless society, it is becoming increasingly difficult to locate important data in a hurry when you need it. To assist individuals with organizing and storing certain pieces of “life” information, Life Elephant provides its members with online storage space and secure access to their most important life information, forms, and documents. The information can be retrieved online at any time – 24/7.”
I have found this to be another user-friendly tool!
Unlimited properties able to be loaded
Hi All,
I’m a landlord and have multiple properties throughout New Hampshire. I am looking for a single software application/database that will allow me to enter as many properties as I need to to service my tenants. I have toyed with the idea of creating my own database via FileMaker, but would prefer to purchase one in the interest of time saved. Does anyone know of any available apps/dbases that allow multiple properties to be entered? It doesn’t matter if their storage is online or not and cost is NOT an immediate factor in my purchase. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.
Best- Fritz
Fritz, Check out a new
Fritz,
Check out a new online home inventory software that might fit your needs. We are in the process of implementing multiple locations. For the time being, check out how simple and easy it is to use our service.
I use lists myself but
From Tony on November 05, 2010 :: 3:12 pm
I use lists myself but I’m looking into the apps to add to it. Thanks.
Reply