Your insurance company would never tell you…

… to do this, but you should do it anyway.

If your [tag]house[/tag] or [tag]apartment[/tag] happened to be destroyed or [tag]damaged by a disaster[/tag] you would need to know what possessions you lost in order to get fully reimbursed. I don’t care how good your memory is, you are not going to remember every item that was in your home. Chances are you will forget about many of them until months after the claim when you need that item.

An easy fix to this solution is to take your camcorder or camera and spend 5-10 minutes to take inventory and record all of your belongings. Pan across your closets, bookshelves, CD cases, peek into each drawer, the cabinets, garage and basement.

I would suggest saving this recording in a fire and water-proof safe and/or at some other location.

After I did this myself, I realistically thought about what I would have forgotten. I estimated that the [tag]insurance[/tag] company would have saved about 50% by me not doing this.