OT How do you inventory/value home contents for insurance?
 

I've started an inventory and taking photos (since we will have a new HO insurance carrier and agent this year.) What really happens in a serious loss (fire, earthquake, hurricane)? Do the insurance companies make you list each of thousands of items in your house and put a $ on it? Seems beyond conception to me to do this after the fact.

I can't speak to HO insurance, but for a claim against renter's insurance, State Farm made me excruciatingly itemize values of each component when I had 3 bikes stolen from a storage unit. They they will go back and forth with you on depreciation, based on when the item was purchased. The way around this is through personal item policies, which are wholly separate and not subject to that depreciation nonsense. I have one of these policies which I put high ticket items on: expensive guitar, Rolex, eventually my SV... The policies are rather affordable and it means I can enjoy these items without much worry.

Being proactive and making a list with photos is great. If you have receipts for any high cost items, copy that too.

Read the fine print on every rider in the policy. This is where the surprises lurk.

I had a friend who had a copper roof damaged in either Irene or Sandy in NY Suburbs years back, and it turned out if the storm was a hurricane, the damage was excluded from coverage. He had to wait for the official determination on max wind speeds in our area to see if he could make the claim. Luckily, the winds didn't exceed hurricane force.

Fire damage is usually core coverage, but earthquake probably is not, and even in a hurricane, there is a difference between wind and flood coverage.
Details on the policy


A comprehensive list will just make your initial claim easier. You will still need energy to wrestle with the adjuster and final settlement offers.

Just keep a copy of the list in the cloud, and another copy in a safe deposit box.
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We have replacement value insurance through USAA and when we had to file, it was pretty straightforward...we gave a list of the items, I think with original value, and then sent them copies of invoices of the replacement items. Most of the items were larger furniture pieces, so it was pretty straaightforward.

Replacement value is key; otherwise you will get pennies on the dollar.

One of these days I will take a walk around the house videoing everything with a running voiceover commentary...and save that to the cloud.

We did a couple of corporate relocations because of my wife's career and were required to make a list like this for moving internationally. We (mostly me) did it over a period of weeks, section-by-section and mainly for valuable/high cost goods. It was actually good discipline.

Photographs and links to comps are easier to do now--and adding extra coverage has been mentioned for home insurance purposes, it is often worth it to carry supplementary insurance, 'listed item' insurance for valuables. In effect it is not much difference than covering valuable cars with special insurance.z

We've used our list exactly once--we had some damage to items when we moved back to Brooklyn, and it was easy to call up the list and we were reimbursed at replacement cost for one piece, and were covered to reupholster a reasonably valuable chair that was cut with a razor knife while it was unpacked.

Thanks for sharing this. We have replacement value coverage, because the depreciation would kill us - our stuff is old :-) But it's sobering to total up replacement cost of just my outerwear and footwear in the entry at $5K.

I hear you. We have a "mud room" that's really a closed-in porch, but it's not secured as well as the rest of the house. We keep the boots and jackets in there and I eyeballed it last week and came up with over $3k before I stopped counting. I should probably move some of the high-$ jackets inside...

This post has me getting busy now inventorying everything in the house. The garage alone between cars, motorcycles and bicycles is over $200,000. Need to meet with my agent to make sure we have enough coverage. Flip back to 2020 and we had a hailstorm come thru. My wife's car was on the drive way and I was out at the store. When the storm hit it sounded like the roof was coming down at the store. Went to my car and it was covered in hundreds of dent as was my wife's car. That cost the insurance company $15,000 and then there was another $45,000 damage to our home. Considering the siding was 22 years old they only wanted to replace two sides. The color was close but not exact. I fought them and they finally caved in and replaced my roof, siding and all the screen windows.

The only advice I can give if you think your insurance company is not being fair push for what is fair. If your a big enough pain in the butt they will pay.

I usually start with my Rolex Daytona collection…