Taking Inventory

Over the years, My Mutual has had the privilege of walking with our insureds through some incredibly difficult claims. Some of the most challenging are total loss claims in which there is nothing, or almost nothing remaining of the original home, business, or seasonal dwelling.

During these claims, our adjusters have witnessed the challenge our insureds face when trying to recount the possessions they owned. So often the trauma of the loss, along with our natural inability to remember as much detail as we might assume we can, results in our insureds struggling to put together a list of contents, personal items, and belongings, they owned. And this challenge is not just related to a total loss fire. It could also easily apply to a theft or mysterious disappearance claim.

With the New Year upon us, it presents a fantastic opportunity for families and business owners to take inventory of what they own. With the technology available today, it has never been easier to organize and store copies of all your personal belongings.

Here are a few easy steps we can encourage our friends, families, and clients to take this winter:

1. Make a plan to see everything
   1. In each room where you will be taking inventory, be sure to “stage” the area so nothing is missed. Often this means opening closet doors, pulling out drawers, and arranging the room in such a way that you can see as much as possible at a glance.
2. Take a picture, take a video
   1. With the ease of video available on our smart phones, this is probably the fastest and easiest way to do this.
   2. Starting at one point of the room, begin recording and work your way through the room in as much detail as you desire. With video, you can also make audio comments as future reminders about the details of certain belongings. If you are taking pictures, follow the same general pattern of working through the room.
3. Store it somewhere else
   1. Lots of well-intentioned people get through steps 1 & 2, and then store all the photos/videos on their computer in their home. If the home is completely destroyed, or if the computer is compromised, this will ultimately be unhelpful.
   2. You can store it in the cloud. Cloud storage service is plentiful and can be found for reasonable pricing. If your photos or video are uploaded to cloud storage, you will still be able to retrieve them, even if all your electronic devices are destroyed.
   3. You can store it on a USB stick or hard drive. The caution here is that these storage devices, over time, can deteriorate and files are easily corrupted. If you choose to use a hardware storage method, be sure to update the files regularly, test the hardware, and replace the storage hardware periodically.
      1. You will also want to make sure you store these hardware devices off premises.
4. Update every couple of years.
   1. Make it part of your schedule. New Year’s is a fantastic opportunity to remind ourselves to do this. It’s cold, there’s usually not too much going on in January, and we can take the time to be prepared in the event something terrible happens.
   2. It may surprise you how many new items you acquire over the course of a year or two. Be sure to stay on top of your inventory so you have the most up-to-date information about what you own.