Home & insurance
What to write down when you make a home inventory
A home inventory is a room-by-room set of photographs of what you own, with the serial numbers of anything that carries one and the receipts for anything expensive, made before anything happens and kept somewhere other than the house.
This page won't say what any policy covers or what anything is worth. Cover depends on the policy, and valuing things is not something this page does.
What it does say is what an inventory needs to contain, and when it needs to be made — which is the part people find out too late.
Write it down
The things to note, in your own words, while they are still exact.
- 01
The date you made it
An inventory describes a house on a particular day. Undated, nobody can tell what it was still true of.
- 02
Serial and model numbers
Anything with a plate or a sticker — electronics, appliances, tools. A serial number identifies one object; a description identifies a category.
- 03
What you paid, and roughly when
In your own note, as best you know it. Age is part of the description of a thing, and it is the part memory loses first.
- 04
Which room each thing is in
Room by room is easier to complete and far easier to check than one long list.
- 05
The date you last updated it
Kept separately from the date you first made it, so it is obvious how much has happened since.
Save it while it exists
The things to capture before they are moved, cleaned, edited or deleted.
- 06
A wide shot of every room, showing its contents
The frame that catches everything the itemised list forgets. After a fire, flood or theft, almost nobody can list what they owned from memory.
- 07
Electronics and appliances, close enough to read the label
The serial number plate itself, in the photograph. Typed out separately it becomes one more thing that can be mistyped.
- 08
Inside cupboards, closets and drawers
Open them. Everything behind a door is invisible in a photograph of the room.
- 09
Jewellery, artwork and collectibles
A group shot is fine for small items. Anything distinctive is worth its own frame.
- 10
Receipts for expensive items
Photographed and stored with the inventory rather than in a drawer in the house being inventoried.
- 11
The whole thing, stored somewhere other than the house
Email it to yourself, or put it in a cloud folder. An inventory that burns with the house has documented nothing.
Related
Prefer to do it on your phone? The same list, as an app.
Open Home Contents→It saves to that device only, with no account and nothing sent anywhere. A new phone, a cleared browser or a lost handset loses everything in it. Export what matters and keep a copy somewhere else.
Reviewed September 12, 2026 · no statute cited · education on documenting, not legal advice