Prepare a Home Inventory and Update Your Policies to Get Ready for Hurricane Season
Prepare a Home Inventory and Update Your Policies to Get Ready for Hurricane Season
Now that hurricane season is vastly approaching once again, it is a good idea to start to prepare early. One way to prepare is to create a home inventory of your belongings which will make filing an insurance claim much easier and full proof if you have one ahead of time. If a hurricane strikes and does substantial damage to your home or roof, it can allow rain to get in a ruin your personal items. Many times after a disaster, it is difficult to remember what exactly you had. Insurance companies will ask you to prepare an inventory list of the items that are missing or damaged listing the age of the item, the price you paid and the approximately value of the items now. This can be hard to recreate and remember in the aftermath of a disaster which means you may miss several things that could have been legitimately claimed. In order to prepare for this it is a good idea to start your home inventory now.
The best way to start is to pick a room and start listing the furniture items in the room. You can prepare this inventory list room by room to make it easier on you. When making the list, include basic information about the item like the make and model, what year you bought it, where you bought it, what you paid and any other details that can help you identify it. If you are in the bedroom, you can move on to clothing. Clothing is easier to document by listing categorizes like “three pairs of sneakers” or “9 dress shirts”. Naturally if you have some of these items that are really expensive, you would want to mark them down separately with the price of each item. Next mark down the personal items you have, such as jewelry, electronics, or any other items you have. If you are recording electronics, it is a good idea to mark down the serial number along with the make and model of each item as well. If you have very expensive things such as jewelry, art of collectibles, you want to make sure you mark these separately as well. It is also a good idea to make sure you check your insurance policy regarding these items. Many policies have a cap on amounts in general for jewelry or art but you can have expensive or valuable items insured under special coverages in this policy.
If you can, it is a good idea to keep proof of the value of your items such as receipts, purchase contracts, bills of sale or the like. The easiest way to keep these items is probably in a digital format by scanning them into your computer. That way you can update them as you purchase additional items. You could even take a picture of your receipt and email it to yourself to be stored on the computer later. Insurance companies don’t expect everyone to have a receipt for items they are claiming but if you do, it makes it very difficult to deny your claim or undervalue it. By starting this process early, you can complete the inventory without getting overwhelmed.
Technology may be your best way to start or record you inventory. Taking pictures is an excellent way to record what you have in your home. You may also want to video tape your belongings and then you can talk about what they are and how much they costs to help you remember and prove you did in fact have the items. If you are taking pictures, it is a good idea to label the photos when you save them so that it is easy for the insurance company to identify what you have. There are also apps that may assist you with creating and storing your room by room recording. While we are not endorsing any of these apps, some examples are MyStuff2 Pro, Home Contents and Home Inventory mobile Backup. These apps make it easy to update your list when you make a purchase. The important thing about these electronic inventory lists is to make sure they are backed up and stored either in the cloud or outside of your home. You may want to consider storing these items on a separate portable hard drive that you can grab and take with you if you have to evacuate before a storm.
After you have completed your inventory list, you can then review your insurance policy to make sure you have enough coverage. Most homeowner’s policies provide coverage for disasters or Acts of God. However, if you are in a flood zone or there is a likelihood of your home being flooded, your best bet would be to get flood insurance because homeowner’s policies don’t cover you for flood. Also, look at your coverages to make sure they are sufficient. If the home is new, the cost you paid for your home is likely close to the cost to rebuild. However, if your home is older, the price you paid is almost never the close to the current price to rebuild that same home if something happened. For a quick idea if your policy has enough coverage for your home, look up the building costs in terms of the price per square foot in your area and multiply that by your total square footage. Other things to consider are whether or not your home is up to current code requirements. If it is not, you want to make sure you have code upgrade coverage to cover those costs if you have to pull a permit to rebuild and the county makes you bring certain aspects of the home up to current code. You should also allow for increased costs of building materials. To protect yourself from this, you should make sure you have replacement costs coverage for your home and contents.
Secondly, determine how much insurance you need for your personal items inside the home. Generally, insurance companies recommend 50 to 70 percent of the insurance on the dwelling as your contents coverage. However, depending on what you have, this standard suggestion may not be enough to replace what you have. Your home inventory list will assist you in determining if this figure is correct or not. Another thing to consider is how much additional living expense coverage you have. Additional living expense coverage pays for the additional costs of living somewhere else while your home is being repaired. It will cover things list hotel bills, restaurant meals additional gas and other additional items you wouldn’t normally incur. In order to get this money back, you must present receipts so make sure you keep them and send them to your insurance company for reimbursement.
Even though we are usually only focused on what it would take to put you back together if a storm it, don’t forget about the liability side of the policy as well. You should have enough coverage to protect your assets if someone made a claim or sued you for bodily injury. Most homeowner’s policies have a minimum of $100,000.00 worth of liability insurance but you can have those amounts increased. You may want to consider purchasing $300,000 to $500,000 of liability coverage just in case you are sued if you own property or have investments that are worth more than the liability limit in your policy. Another option may be to purchase an umbrella policy. Some recommend have a 1 million dollar policy which will provide coverage above and beyond individuals auto and homeowners insurance. These policies can also provide defense costs if you are sued which can add up quickly.
If you have questions regarding whether your policy provides enough or the right coverage, allow us at Christopher Ligori & Associates to provide a free policy review. We offer free claims review as well.