HomeInvent Guides
Everything we have learned about documenting a household so a claim can actually be paid: what insurers ask for, how much detail is enough, and how to get it done in one evening rather than never.
Insurance claims
Home Inventory for Insurance: What Your Insurer Actually Wants
What an insurance company expects in a home inventory, how much detail is enough, and the format adjusters can work with. Written for homeowners, not agents.
Proof of Ownership for an Insurance Claim: What Counts as Evidence
Receipts, photos, serial numbers, bank statements, appraisals — what an adjuster accepts as proof of ownership, ranked, and what to do when the receipt burned with the house.
Actual Cash Value vs Replacement Cost: What It Means for Your Claim
The difference between ACV and RCV in plain English, how depreciation is applied to household items, and why the purchase date in your inventory decides what you are paid.
How Much Personal Property Coverage Do You Actually Need?
Why the default 50–70% of dwelling coverage is a guess, how to check it against what you actually own, and the sub-limits that quietly cap jewelry, cash and electronics.
Scheduled Personal Property: When Your Jewelry Needs Its Own Line
How riders and floaters work for jewelry, art, instruments and collections, when scheduling is worth it, and the appraisal documentation your insurer will ask for.
Building the inventory
How to Create a Home Inventory in One Evening
A realistic method for documenting a whole house in a few hours: the order to work in, what to record, what to skip, and how to finish instead of abandoning it in the living room.
Home Inventory Checklist, Room by Room
A complete room-by-room checklist of what to record in a home inventory, including the items people reliably forget in the garage, attic and outdoors.
How to Photograph Your Belongings for an Insurance Claim
What to shoot, from what angle, and in what light so that photos of your belongings actually support a claim — including the close-ups adjusters look for.
Serial Numbers: Which Items Need Them and Where to Find Them
Which household items carry serial numbers worth recording, where each type hides its label, and why the serial number is the single most useful field after a theft.
How to Value Used Household Items for Insurance
How to put a defensible number on furniture, electronics, tools and clothing you bought years ago, and which value your policy actually pays.
Software and tools
Home Inventory Spreadsheet vs Software: An Honest Comparison
Where a spreadsheet is genuinely good enough for a home inventory, where it falls apart, and what dedicated software adds beyond a grid of cells.
Choosing Home Inventory Software: The Five Questions That Matter
Rather than a ranked list of products, the five criteria that decide whether inventory software will still be useful to you in five years — and how to test each one before committing.
Free Home Inventory Apps vs Offline Software: The Real Trade-off
What free inventory apps cost you in privacy, export quality and longevity, and when a free app is genuinely the right choice.
Where to Store Your Home Inventory So It Survives the Loss
A file stored only on the computer inside the house you are documenting is not a backup. Practical storage options ranked by how well they survive fire, flood, theft and time.
When it matters
Wildfire Evacuation: What to Document in the Thirty Minutes You Get
A realistic plan for documenting a house under evacuation orders, what to take, what to photograph, and what to prepare now so the thirty minutes are enough.
Hurricane Season: Documenting Your Home Before the Storm
What to photograph and file before a named storm arrives, how flood coverage differs from wind, and the paperwork that makes a post-storm claim move faster.
After a Burglary: Building the List for Police and Insurance
What to do in the first hours after a break-in, how to build the stolen property list, and why serial numbers decide whether anything is ever recovered.
Documenting a Parent’s Household: An Estate Inventory That Holds Up
How to inventory a parent’s home for probate and family division: what the court needs, how to value contents, and how to keep the process from turning into a dispute.
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