Your House Is Insured. But Could Your Prove What’s Inside?
It’s a question we hear from homeowners from time to time:
“If my house were to burn to the ground, would my stuff be covered?”
The simple answer is usually yes.
Most homeowners insurance policies include coverage for your personal belongings, from your furniture and clothing to your electronics and household items.
But in our experience, that’s not the question homeowners should be asking.
A better question is:
“If my house burned down tomorrow, could I accurately tell the insurance company everything I owned?”
That’s where things get interesting.
The Insurance Company Doesn’t Know What You Own
One of the biggest misconceptions I see is that people assume the insurance company already knows what they have and how much it’s worth.
They don’t.
If you were to experience a major fire, theft, or other covered loss, you would be asked to identify and document the items that were damaged or destroyed.
Most people immediately think of the big-ticket items:
The riding mower
The refrigerator
The couch
The TV
The jewelry
Those are easy to remember.
What people forget are the hundreds of smaller items they’ve accumulated over the years:
Tools in the garage
Golf clubs
Lamps
End tables
Kitchen utensils
Towels and bedding
Decorations
Clothing
Blinds and curtains
Books
Sporting equipment
Individually, none of these items seem like a big deal.
Collectively, they can represent tens of thousands of dollars.
The Problem Isn’t Coverage. It’s Memory.
We’ve had conversations with homeowners where we start walking through their house room by room, and the response is almost always the same:
“I never thought about those items.”
And that’s completely normal.
Most of us don’t spend our days thinking about everything we own.
The challenge comes after a loss, when you’re already dealing with the emotional stress of a house fire, and now you’re being asked to remember the contents of every room, closet, drawer, cabinet, shelf, garage, and basement.
That’s a difficult task for anyone.
The Best Thing You Can Do This Weekend
If we could give every homeowner one piece of advice, it would be this:
Walk through your home and record a video.
Open closets.
Open cabinets.
Open drawers.
Walk through the garage.
Walk through the basement.
Take your time and narrate what you’re seeing.
It doesn’t have to be perfect.
The goal isn’t to create a museum-quality inventory. The goal is to create a record of what was there.
Just as importantly, make sure that video is stored in the cloud.
If your phone is destroyed in the same fire and the video only exists on the device, you’re right back where you started.
A cloud backup can make all the difference.
Don’t Let Perfect Stop You From Starting
Many homeowners hear the words “home inventory” and immediately picture hours of paperwork.
While a detailed inventory can certainly be helpful, don’t let perfection keep you from taking the first step.
A 10-minute video walkthrough stored safely online is infinitely better than a perfect inventory that never gets started.
Once you’ve completed the video, you can always build on it later.
Use an Inventory Worksheet to Fill in the Gaps
After recording your video, consider using a home inventory worksheet to organize your belongings room by room.
One of the reasons we like inventory worksheets is that they help you think about categories you may otherwise overlook.
For example, many worksheets prompt homeowners to consider items such as:
Furniture
Electronics
Kitchen contents
Linens and bedding
Tools
Sporting equipment
Musical instruments
Collectibles
Garage and storage items
Having a structured checklist can help ensure important items don’t get forgotten.
Some Items Deserve a Second Conversation
Most household belongings are fairly straightforward.
However, there are certain categories that are worth discussing with your insurance agent, including:
Jewelry
Musical instruments
Expensive tools
If you own items that would be particularly difficult or expensive to replace, it’s worth taking a few minutes to review your policy and make sure your coverage aligns with your expectations.
A house fire is a difficult time to discover assumptions were wrong.
Final Thoughts
Nobody expects to lose their home to a fire.
Most people assume it will never happen to them.
That’s exactly why a little preparation today can make a difficult situation much easier tomorrow.
Start with a simple video walkthrough.
Save it to the cloud.
Use an inventory worksheet to fill in the gaps.
And if you’d like help reviewing your current coverage or discussing how specific items are protected, we’d be happy to sit down with you and review your policy.
The goal isn’t to prepare for what you expect to happen. It’s to be ready for what you hope never does.
