Keep Track of Your Personal Possessions In Case of Fire or Other Disaster

October 27, 2007 By Matthew Paulson

Very few of us realize how much stuff we actually have until it comes time to move. We buy a few things here and a few things there, and after a few years of living at a place, we amass quite a bit of stuff, often much more than we can mentally keep track of. If your home or apartment were to suffer some catastrophic disaster such as a fire or a flood, would you be able to provide an account for all of the items that you own and demonstrate that you did indeed own them to an insurance company? Most people just wouldn’t be able to do that off the top of their heads, that’s why it’s very important to keep a record of your personal possessions.

A great way to document all of your possessions is to take a video camera, go through your house and verbally describe all of your possessions. If you don’t have a video camera, you can borrow one from a friend, your local library, or you can just buy one online for under $150.00.

In order to do this, simply get a blank tape, walk through all of your rooms in your home, point the video camera at all of the possessions you would want paid for by your insurance company in the event of a fire, burglary, or any other catastrophe. When you have the camera focused on an item, describe what it is, when you bought it, and how much you paid for it if you can remember. This will provide excellent documentation and proof of ownership to any insurance carrier.

The one caveat when recording a video of your possessions is to not store that video at home, preferably not even in the same city as your home. A good place to store it is at a friend or relative’s house in another state. You can then go and get the video if you ever need to collect on an insurance claim. Make sure to update this video every 18 months to 2 years so that you have an up-to-date documentation of your possessions.

There’s also a new service called Knowyourstuff.org which provides you with some free specially designed software that will help you document all of your possessions. It’s absolutely free and definitely worth checking out. You can attach photographs to items and describe them in detail, this way if you ever need to prove ownership of some of your possessions to an insurance adjuster, you have photos and descriptions on that website ready to go.