What is a Home Inventory and Why You Need One?

Be a Smarter Homeowner

Welcome to the Be A Smarter Homeowner Podcast, today your hosts John Bodrozic and Beth Dodson are focusing on what a home inventory is and the reasons why they are recommended. As a homeowner, you may have not even thought about doing an inventory on your home, but if you need to make a claim it can be very helpful. Not just for insurance claims, home inventories become handy in managing money and estate planning as well. Tune in to this episode to get organized on maintaining and protecting your largest asset and expense, your home.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• [01:00] What does it mean to take a home inventory and what should you record?
• [04:29] Beth gives advice on ways of doing inventory on the items in your home depending on what has value and is important to you, i.e., photos, video, and spreadsheets
• [06:35] Different tools and ways to take your home inventory
• [13:00] The importance of a home inventory to ease insurance processes and claims
• [21:35] Using tools to create a better relationship between consumer and insurance company and evaluating your insurance policy
• [27:00] Home inventory for estate planning, trusts & wills

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• There are many different ways to take your home inventory and different things to record- make sure to record what has value to you personally
• Updating your home inventory is important, especially after remodels and updates- this includes updating the value of your homeowner’s insurance policy to value these changes
• Technology can be a big help in the home inventory process in taking video or photos and then being able to record these items digitally- making it easy to submit to insurance companies as needed

• Home inventories can also come in great use if you ever move to a new house- you can manage the move with a moving company more easily

Links Mentioned:

www.beasmarterhomeowner.com

www.homezada.com