If you experienced some sort of disaster with your house – fire, flood, tornado – how well would you remember what you owned and lost?
Thankfully, insurance companies are very good about helping you in those situations. They act quickly and want to get you back on your feet as soon as possible. They just need to know what you’re missing. Would you know what to ask for?
Let’s say you’re sitting down a few days later with an insurance adjuster who wants to help you. They’re getting ready to write a check and you need to tell them what you need to replace. Will you know what to tell them?
Maybe not. Oftentimes, it’s not until weeks or months later when you’re looking for something you only use once or twice a year that you might realize it’s missing and realize too late that you lost it and won’t be reimbursed.
Thankfully, there’s are two simple things you can do right now to help guard against that kind of situation. First, walk through your house with a video camera or using the camera on your phone to record what’s in your house. Walk through the rooms, open the cupboards and closets to record what you have. Narrate the video, too, to call out what you’re seeing.
Second, get a copy of that video to a safe place – put it on Dropbox, put it on a drive that you give to us or a friend. Better yet, do all those things.
If you’re ever facing recovery from disaster, you’ll thank yourself that you had something to help remind you what you need to replace.
