A home inventory, in about an hour

The fast version

The most valuable inventory is the one that actually gets done, and a walkthrough on a phone takes about twenty minutes.

Film room by room, narrating what things are as you go. Open wardrobes, cupboards and drawers — most of what a household owns is behind a door, and closed doors are why estimates come in low.

Then photograph the handful of things that matter individually, and the serial numbers on anything substantial. That is enough to be worth far more than nothing, which is what most households have.

Going room by room

If you want the thorough version, work through the property in a fixed order so nothing is missed. The rooms people forget are consistently the same ones.

• Kitchen — appliances, cookware and small electricals, which add up faster than anywhere else
• Living areas — furniture, screens, audio, instruments
• Bedrooms — clothing, jewellery, watches, personal electronics
• Bathrooms and storage — linens, cleaning equipment, the contents of cupboards
• Garage, shed and loft — tools, garden equipment, sports and camping gear, seasonal decorations
• Home office — computers, peripherals, and anything used for work, which may be capped separately

What to record for each thing

For most items the film is enough. For anything substantial, a little more makes the difference between a claim you evidence and a claim you argue.

What it is, roughly when it was bought, roughly what it cost, and any serial or model number. Receipts where you have them, and valuations for jewellery, art or anything likely to exceed a category cap.

Do not try to value things precisely. The purpose is to establish that the item existed and roughly what it was, which is what is actually disputed after a loss.

Where to keep it

Outside the house. A record stored only on a laptop that was stolen alongside everything else is not a record, and the same applies to one stored in a house that burned down.

A cloud account, an email to yourself, or a copy with a relative all work. The requirement is simply that it survives the event it exists for.

Update it when something significant arrives rather than on a schedule. Households accumulate between renewals and almost never adjust the limit to match.

Then use it

The inventory has done half its job when it exists. The other half is comparing the total against the contents limit on the declarations page.

If the total is higher, the limit is worth raising, and it is usually inexpensive to do. If anything on the list exceeds a category cap — jewellery, watches, collectibles, instruments, business equipment — that item is a candidate for scheduling.

That is the entire point of the exercise: a limit chosen from what you own rather than derived from the size of the building.