There is never a great time for a home insurance claim – especially one with significant damage. A flood, tornado or fire can cause partial or total loss and that means filing a claim for every possession within your home. While some items are easy to remember, like a couch, bed or large screen TV, other items aren’t so easy to recall, especially if you are trying to remember everything you own. So that’s why it’s important to do periodic home inventories. Performed on an annual basis, these inventories can catalog all your (or a vast majority) of your possessions in the event of a total loss.

Home inventory the easy way

Inventorying all of your possession could seem like a daunting task, but there is a very easy way to do it. Simply video record your home. Do a walking tour of your home and video all your possessions, including furniture, electronics, clothing, etc. This provides an excellent source of information for you and your insurance company to use as a basis for your claim. The video should highlight expensive items or large quantities of items. For instance, if you happen to own a lot of shoes, take an extra minute in your closet and video your shoes for good record. If you are a collector of any sort, video your collections in detail to ensure accuracy. For valuables such as jewelry, it’s best to have appraisals on hand. You can video those as well. Simply lay them out on a table and capture the important information on the video file. Receipts are another good document to capture on the video, particularly for expensive items. Simply fan the receipts on the table and focus your video recorder to ensure you can see the printing.

Store the video someplace safe

Once you have a video inventory of your possessions, store a copy somewhere safe, ideally outside of your home. A safe deposit box works well. But another easy and simple place is a cloud-based server. Google Drive allows free storage up to a limited amount of data, but it’s usually enough space to store a few video files. Other cloud based data storage sites may charge a monthly fee, but offer the safety of remote storage. To learn more about inventorying your possessions, contact your independent Provident Insurance agent. We serve Plainfield, Greenwood, Avon, Brownsburg, Indianapolis, Carmel, Zionsville and the entire central Indiana area. Stop in one of our convenient locations to discuss your insurance needs today.