Home inventory checklist for insurance claims

When belongings are damaged or destroyed, the insurance company needs to know what you owned and what it was worth. Triple-I advises preparing an inventory of damaged or destroyed items and giving the adjuster a copy, along with any receipts. Many homeowners policies list it among your duties after a loss, and the Texas Department of Insurance tells homeowners to make a list of damaged property.

A list made before a disaster helps in three ways:

• A faster claim. You aren’t rebuilding years of purchases from memory while you’re exhausted.
• The right amount of coverage. Adding it up shows whether your personal property limit (often called Coverage C) is high enough.
• Tax records. Triple-I notes an inventory can help verify losses for your income tax return. The IRS Publication 584 workbook even uses room-by-room schedules.

If the loss already happened, don’t worry. The after-a-loss section below shows how to build a list now.

You don’t need every detail for every fork. Spend your effort on items that would cost real money to replace.

Age and condition matter because many policies first pay actual cash value, which is the replacement price minus wear and age. Learn how that works in our guide to replacement cost versus actual cash value.

Work one room at a time, left to right, top to bottom. Open every closet, cabinet and drawer.

Living room and entry

• Sofas, chairs, tables, rugs and lamps
• TV, sound system, game consoles and streaming devices
• Art, mirrors, clocks, books and decor
• Curtains, blinds and throw pillows

Kitchen and dining room

• Refrigerator, range, microwave and dishwasher (note if they belong to the house)
• Small appliances: mixer, coffee maker, air fryer, blender
• Cookware, knives, dishes, glassware and flatware
• Dining table, chairs, hutch and china
• Pantry and freezer food

Bedrooms and closets

• Beds, mattresses, dressers and nightstands
• Clothing, shoes, coats and handbags, counted by type
• Jewelry and watches, each photographed
• Bedding, linens and keepsakes

Bathrooms

• Towels, hair tools, scales and storage
• Toiletries and stocked supplies

Home office

• Computers, monitors, printers and phones
• Desk, chair and shelving
• Important papers: note what they are and where the originals are kept

Laundry room, basement and storage

• Washer, dryer, freezer and dehumidifier
• Holiday decorations and stored furniture
• Luggage, sports gear and bins of seasonal clothes

Garage, shed and yard

• Power tools, hand tools and ladders
• Lawn mower, trimmers and snow blower
• Bikes, grills and patio furniture

Attic

• Boxes: photograph the label and the open contents

Also photograph the house itself: each room’s floors, cabinets and fixtures, plus the roof and outside walls. Those pictures support the building side of a claim, which falls under dwelling coverage rather than contents.

• Wide, then close. Take one wide shot of each wall, then close-ups of valuable items.
• Open everything. Photograph inside closets, drawers and cabinets. Lay jewelry on a table so several pieces fit in one shot.
• Capture labels. Photograph serial numbers and model tags on the back or bottom of appliances and electronics.
• Narrate a video. Walk slowly and say what you see: “KitchenAid mixer, bought around 2019.”
• Add the paperwork. Photograph receipts, appraisals and manuals next to the item.
• Name your files by room. For example, kitchen-01.jpg. It makes the list easy to match later.

Many homeowners policies set lower limits, called special limits of liability, for certain kinds of property. Triple-I and the Texas Department of Insurance point to items such as jewelry, furs, silverware and art, and some insurers also limit computers. Some limits apply only to theft. Look for that section in your policy, and check your declarations page for any added coverage.

For valuable items, keep appraisals and photos together. If an item is worth more than the special limit, ask your agent about scheduling it, which means listing it separately on the policy with its own coverage, often through an endorsement or floater.

Whatever you use, store a copy away from home. Triple-I suggests a safe deposit box or a friend’s or relative’s home for paper copies, and an external drive or online storage account for digital files. Oregon’s insurance regulator recommends redoing your inventory every year.

Most people never made a list before the disaster. You can still build a strong one.

• Photograph damage before cleanup. Keep damaged items until the adjuster has seen them or says you can discard them, unless they’re a health hazard. Photograph anything you throw out.
• Ask what format the insurer accepts. Request their form, and ask whether your own spreadsheet will do.
• Mine your records. Online order histories, email receipts, bank and card statements, store loyalty accounts and warranty registrations.
• Use old photos. Phone galleries, social media posts and family pictures show rooms in the background. Zoom in.
• Walk each room from memory. Picture the room from the doorway and list items wall by wall. Ask family members to do the same.
• Group the small things. Count clothing, books or kitchen items by category when listing each piece isn’t practical. In California, when a primary home is a total loss in a declared state of emergency, insurers must accept an inventory that groups categories like these.
• Price like-kind replacements. Note the current price of a similar new item. If your policy pays replacement cost, the held-back recoverable depreciation is usually paid after you replace the item.

After a fire, smoke can damage items that look fine, so include them. Our guide to fire damage claims covers smoke, soot and contents in more detail.

Your contents list is one piece of a bigger claim that also covers the house and, if you can’t live there, your extra living costs under loss of use coverage. The free home insurance claim checklist shows where the inventory fits, stage by stage, so it gets done at the right time.

If you want to learn the whole process, the Claims Answer Man course has a lesson on personal property, and its Claim Toolkit will include a printable personal property inventory. The course isn’t open yet.