A childhood friend of mine lost everything in a fire. The whole family was devastated. Recently, two of our clients have lost everything they owned too.
Here’s something every one of them has told me. Long after the claim is closed, they’ll walk into a room to grab something: the good scissors, a favorite baking dish, the box of kids’ drawings. Halfway there, they remember it’s gone, lost to the fire.
Every one of those moments is an item that never made their claim. It was never listed, never paid for, and never replaced.
So here’s the one thing you can do, starting tonight: take a video of your home and upload it to the cloud. Insurance people call it a home inventory video. It takes about ten minutes, and it can be the difference between a claim that pays for what you actually had and one that pays for what you could remember.
Why the Property List Is the Hardest Part of a Total Loss Claim
After a total loss, your insurer can see the burned house. It can’t see what was in your drawers. For your belongings, the burden is on you to list what you had, item by item, with the brand and roughly what you paid.
Try this right now without getting up. List everything in your bedroom closet: every shoe, jacket, and box on the top shelf. Most of us get about a third of it. Now imagine doing that for the whole house, after the worst day of your life, with the house gone.
Grief doesn’t sharpen your memory. It scrambles it. A list written in a hotel room the week after a fire is always going to come up short. And whatever you forget doesn’t get paid for.
The list also holds up the money. In Texas, your insurer’s clock to approve your claim doesn’t really start until it has everything it asked for, and the contents list is usually the last thing to come in. How a house fire claim gets paid explains how that clock works.
A video remembers for you.
How to Make Your Home Inventory Video in 10 Minutes
- Start at the front door and walk the house in order. Go room by room so you don’t skip anything.
- Film every room, even the ones you think a fire wouldn’t reach. Smoke travels through the whole house, so a bedroom at the far end can still be a total loss.
- Open everything. Closets, drawers, cabinets, the pantry, under the bathroom sink. The stuff behind doors is what people forget.
- Talk while you film. “This is the Samsung TV, bought it about two years ago, around eleven hundred dollars.” Your voice is your notes.
- Get close on the expensive things. Electronics, jewelry, art, instruments, bikes, and brand labels on furniture. Zoom in on serial numbers when you can.
- Don’t skip the garage, attic, or shed. Tools, lawn equipment, holiday decorations, and sporting goods add up fast, and they’re the first things people leave off their list.
- Upload it right away. Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, or whichever service you already use. Then text the link to someone you trust who doesn’t live with you.
Why the Cloud Matters
A home inventory video on your phone is only as safe as your phone. A flash drive in your desk drawer burns with the desk. The point of this video is that it survives the thing it’s protecting you from, so it has to live somewhere other than your house.
Receipts Are Great. Done Is Better Than Perfect.
Yes, receipts are the gold standard. If you’re the kind of person with a labeled folder for every purchase since 2011, wonderful. Keep it, and scan it into the cloud too.
For everyone else, don’t let perfect stop you from doing anything. A shaky, unedited home inventory video you actually made beats a flawless spreadsheet you meant to start someday. The video shows the adjuster what you had. You can rebuild prices afterward from credit card statements, bank records, and online order histories like Amazon, Home Depot, and Target, which go back years.
The video proves it existed. Your digital records help prove what it cost. Together, that’s most of a property list, and you didn’t have to remember a thing.
Keep It Current
Redo your home inventory video once a year. A simple way to remember is to do it when you change the batteries in your smoke detectors. Also film any big purchase the day it comes home.
Make Sure Your Policy Pays for What’s on the Video
A great video only helps if your policy covers what’s in it. Once you’ve filmed your house, it’s a good time to check a few things. Are your belongings covered at replacement cost or actual cash value? Do jewelry or collectibles need their own coverage? Does your dwelling coverage amount still match what it costs to rebuild?
Whether you’re in DFW or The Woodlands, we’ll walk through it with you.
And tonight, take ten minutes and film your house. Done is better than perfect.