As a homeowner, you put your heart and soul into your property. Every detail is carefully considered – from the landscaping to the paint color on the walls – in order to make it feel like this is truly your home.
A large part of that process is deciding what furniture or other items will go in each room. It can be hard to believe that a disaster could happen at any time.
But, the truth is it can happen and when it does, you want to be prepared beforehand, documenting all your household items to ensure that everything is accounted for after an event occurs.
Documenting your household belongings is a smart idea for many reasons.
First, it can be difficult to remember what was in the attic or basement from one week to another.
Secondly, this information could come in handy if you ever need to make an insurance claim or just want to know what items you have and how much they are worth.
Do yourself a favor and be proactive – record a video inventory of all your personal belongings and interior finishes in the home.
When you start making an inventory of your personal property and interior finishes, there are a few pointers to keep in mind.
If you have a smartphone, make videos of the things in your house. You can send them to other people or save them for yourself.
Record what’s inside all the drawers, cabinets, storage containers, and closets in your home, open them and also write down what is inside.
You should write down the make, model, and include the serial numbers of your electronics.
Keep the tags that show the brand of your clothes. Remove covers from furniture like tablecloths on the kitchen table or sheets on a mattress to expose any labels.
Try to think of all the different places where you might find your valuable items.
Include a video for each room. In the event of a fire or water damage, you can see what it looks like. Updating your video inventory is very important. You should do this once a year.
After you complete your video inventory, save it to an external location so that you do not lose your records. You should not save your video footage on your phone or laptop alone. Save it in a different place, like emailing it to yourself or saving it with a cloud-based storage service such as Google Drive.
Recording a video inventory of all your personal belongings in the home is an essential step to take for homeowners who want to be prepared ahead of time.
Documenting your household items ensures that you have everything accounted for after any event occurs, and it also provides peace of mind as family members can review this list at any time.
As a homeowner, you put your heart into your property so make sure that when disaster strikes – you’re ready!
