The beginning of the year is an excellent time to review your homeowners coverages to make sure you aren’t left underinsured if you encounter a loss. An essential part of performing a comprehensive review of your homeowners policy is creating a home inventory. Keeping this database up-to-date ensures that new purchases you’ve made since your last insurance review included in your personal property coverage, and can help speed up the claims process if you do need to file.
Logging everything in your home sounds intimidating, but the Insurance Information Institute offers the following advice for tackling your home inventory without getting overwhelmed:
- Pick an easy place to start. Contained areas, like kitchen cabinets and closets, are good places to begin.
- List recent purchases. Recent purchases are fresher in your mind, so they are some of the easiest things to begin listing in order to help you get into the groove of creating your inventory. After you complete that list, you can move on to your older property.
- Include the basic information. Describe each item in your inventory and record where it was purchased, the make and model and how much you paid for it.
- Lump clothing into categories. Grouping clothing by type (jeans, sweaters, boots, etc.) in your inventory will save a lot of time. Separately record pieces that are especially valuable.
- Record serial numbers for major appliances and electronics.
- Check coverage on expensive items. You may need separate policies for particularly valuable items, like jewelry, art and collectibles, so make note of these possessions and speak to your insurance agent about proper coverage.
In the slideshow above, we’ll look at the most common perils that lead to homeowners insurance claims, according to Experian.
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