How could you prove material losses if you lost your home through fire, flood, or other disaster?Take the time to install a home inventory system on your computor. Join the computor age.
Did you ever consider how valuable a room by room inventory of your home would be if there were a fire, flood, or other catastrophe? Can you remember every item in every room of your house? Can you recall how much each item cost and where it is located? Not many of us can do that, so it makes sense to take a little time, sit down at your computor and inventory your home.
You could devise you own system of inventory and make long lists of chairs, beds, tables. lamps, and the rest of your possessions. That would soon become very tedious, so why not let someone else do most of that type work for you? Make use of the Internet, and let it find a simpler way to accomplish your inventory.
There are a number of companies on the Net that make home inventory systems. Get on the Net, go to a search engine, I recommend Metacrawler, which utilizes multiple search engines, and type in home inventory, inventory systems, or just plain inventory. Take a look at what is offered. Inventory systems come in all price ranges, from $25.00 to $35.00 and up. If you take a little time to look around, you may even find some Freeware or Shareware programs. That's the beauty of the Internet, you are searching the world with an ever changing and ever growing spectrum of possibilities.
Many of the companies will have sample pages, so you can see what their format for entering infomation is, and whether it will suit you needs. Some will have a sample download so you can actually use a simplfied version of the inventory system. You could, for example, enter everything of value in one room, say a bedroom, and determine if the entering method, the completeness of the inventory is what you are looking for in a system.
If you do not like to download material from the Net, or have trouble doing so, just about all of the companies will send you a CD of their program through the mail. When you get it, put the CD in the CD slot and follow the instructions. In a few moments you will be ready to do your inventory.
It may be that there are some things you own, such as books, music CDs, stamp collections, or other hobby material, that you would prefer to inventory separately. That will not be a problem because there are many inventory systems designed especially for those types of items.
If you have a stamp collection, for example, use the same process you did before. Go to your search engine and type in stamp inventory, stamp collecting. or some similiar term and take a look at the results. You will be able to find a system that suits your needs.
When your inventory is completed, put it on several floppies. You may care to have your insurance agent come over and walk him through your home with a printout of your inventory, or inventories if you have made more than one. Give copies on floppy disks to him, put others in your safety deposit box, leave one with your lawyer if you have one.
Now, if something happens to your home, or if you are burglarized, a complete inventory is available to establish a claim. You may not get your possessions back, but you can be recompened for their loss.
