Make A List & Check It Twice

Don’t freak out on me. This is not a Christmas post. It’s too early for that. 

Isn’t it?

I got an e-mail from Wells Fargo the other day with the subject line, “Have you taken an inventory of your home lately?” I thought to myself, “Of course not…” and hovered over the delete key. But then curiosity took over, and I decided to read the e-mail.

In summary, Wells Fargo wants to make sure that I’m not underinsured because two out of every three American homes are. They also wanted to let me know that having a list of items located in my home would make it easier to file a claim if I ever needed to. 

It makes sense that having a list of your personal property would be helpful should something ever happen to your home. But who has time to do that?
I closed the e-mail and let it sit in my inbox for a few days. Every time I looked at it, I imagined something terrible happening. What if our house burns down? What if we get robbed? What if a tornado decides to whirl through our neighborhood? The idea that I’d have to recall the items in the home for an insurance claim while suffering through an insane amount of stress from the tragic event made me nervous; nervous enough to re-consider creating an inventory.

Attached to the e-mail was a tool called the Inventory Your Home tool. You can find it here. It’s quite handy. It divides your home up into main rooms and gives you room to list out each item, its manufacturer, and estimated value. Each room also has a list of example items so you know what stuff to write down. 

Looking around our house, I thought to myself, sure I can do this in a couple hours. No problem. 

After about one hour of inventory taking, it was a huge problem. I found my mind wandering, my pen taking shortcuts, and noticed I was skipping over items I probably shouldn’t skip over.

So, word of warning: This is a tedious process. It’s kind of like scrubbing your floors with a toothbrush. I recommend doing it in small increments over time. I’m aiming for 20 to 30 minutes a couple times each week until it’s complete.

Once you have the inventory written/typed out, you can take pictures of valuable items and store them with the inventory some place safe. For us, it will be kept in our fire proof safe. I may even create a digital version and save the inventory and the photos on a USB drive in the safe. One step at a time though.

As I moved through the inventory, I found it best to start at one corner of the room and work my way around clockwise. Don’t forget to open your cupboards and drawers! I almost passed over our DVD collection because it’s hidden in a drawer. That would be a costly mistake!

I filled in the information that I knew and left the rest blank. After finishing one room, I went back and researched the blank spots as best I could. For example, I pulled out the paperwork that came with our entertainment center to see who manufactured it and I dug up the receipt for our couch to see how much we paid for it. If you don’t have these things handy, you can probably find comparable items on Amazon or other websites.

I’m not quite finished with the inventory, but when I am, I plan to contact our insurance agent to make sure we are properly insured. I’d hate to have to replace our oven with just a toaster because we don’t have enough insurance coverage…

I have a little bit more peace of mind about our home and its contents being protected should something terrible happen. I suppose an hour or so a week for a few weeks is worth it. Oh, and as a disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. Wells Fargo has no idea that I’m sharing their tool with you today or who I am for that matter…

So are you prepared for a home emergency? How do you keep valuable information safe inside your home?

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