Creating a home inventory is an essential part of performing a comprehensive review of your home insurance policy.
In the sections below, we’ll look at what Experian considers the most common perils that lead to homeowners insurance claims.
1. Wind and Hail
Percentage of claims: 45.5%
Average cost per claim: $11,695
Photo by Evelina Friman on Unsplash
2. Fire and lightning
Percentage of claims: 23.8%
Average cost per claim: $77,340
Photo by Max LaRochelle on Unsplash
3. Water damage and freezing
Percentage of claims: 19.9%
Average cost per claim: $11,650
Image by Markus Distelrath from Pixabay
4. Miscellaneous property damage and financial incidents
Percentage of claims: 8%
Average cost per claim: $820 to $6,770
Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians from Pixabay
5. Bodily injury and property damage
Percentage of claims: 2%
Average cost per claim: $30,324
Image by F. Muhammad from Pixabay
It is helpful to create an up-to-date home inventory list to ensure that any new purchases you’ve made since your last insurance review are included in your personal property coverage and can help speed up the claims process if you need to file. Logging everything in your home doesn’t have to be intimidating—the Insurance Information Institute offers advice for making the home inventory process easy and painless.
To get started, make sure you have digital copies or photographs of all important documents including home deeds, inventories, appraisals, purchase receipts, credit card statements, etc. This will help with future reference if needed. You should also take pictures or video recordings of all of your home’s contents. We also recommend storing this information in the cloud or on an external hard drive, for future usage.
When doing an inventory, list each item with a detailed description and the estimated value. Be sure to include furniture, appliances, electronics, clothing, jewelry, artwork and any other items you would take with you if you were to move. If the home contains multiple stories or rooms don’t forget to go through closets, cupboards and attics for forgotten items that should be on the list. Finally make sure to keep a copy of your home inventory in a secure place outside of your home such as cloud storage or even at your bank’s safety deposit box.
When you are doing preparing to take these steps, you can rest easy knowing that if something happens to your home and its contents, you are well prepared to make a home insurance claim. Keeping your home inventory up-to-date will also help if you need to adjust your coverage levels in the future.
So get started on creating your home inventory and protect yourself from the unexpected.
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