For each valuable item, record a photo, the serial number, and the purchase price and date. Work through one room at a time, starting with electronics, appliances, bikes, and jewellery. This guide covers what to record, how to organise it, and how to keep it current.
When you make a home contents insurance claim, your insurer will ask you to prove what you owned and what it was worth. Without records, you are relying on memory - and memory is unreliable, especially after the stress of a burglary or a flood.
A decent inventory does three things: it helps you make sure you have enough cover in the first place, it speeds up any claim you do make, and it gives you a defensible record if a claim is disputed. It also forces you to think about things like expensive electronics and jewellery that are easily underinsured.
For anything of significant value, you want to capture:
For lower-value items like books, clothing, or kitchen equipment, you don't need this level of detail. A rough count and an estimated value per category is usually enough for an insurer - and far better than nothing.
The most practical approach is to work through the house one room at a time. Pick a room, walk around it, and record everything that would cost real money to replace. Kitchen appliances, TVs, computers, cameras, tools, musical instruments, sports equipment, jewellery, artwork - all of these are worth documenting properly.
Most people underestimate what they own. A single room often contains several thousand pounds worth of contents once you add it up. The living room alone - TV, games console, speakers, laptop, camera - can easily exceed £5,000.
Lofts, garages, sheds, and cupboards under stairs are where things get forgotten. Power tools, bikes, camping equipment, and seasonal items live here and are often the first things stolen or the last things remembered after a claim. Add them to the inventory when you first do it - they're easy to forget later.
If you have receipts, photograph them and link them to the relevant item. Bank and card statements can also serve as proof of purchase if you no longer have the receipt. For high-value items like jewellery, a professional valuation certificate is worth getting - insurers often require one for items above a certain value.
An inventory you made three years ago and never updated is only partially useful. The best habit is to add new items when you buy them, rather than trying to do a full audit every year. When you get home with a new laptop or camera, take 60 seconds to photograph it and note the serial number before it goes in a bag or on a shelf.
NFC stickers can help with this. Stick one to a shelf or storage box and tap it with your iPhone to immediately open that location in your inventory. It removes the friction of finding the right place to log something.
A spreadsheet works but has real drawbacks - no photos, no easy mobile access, and it tends to go out of date quickly because it's not convenient to update on the go. A dedicated app with photo support and offline access is easier to maintain.
Whatever you use, keep a copy somewhere other than your home. If your house floods or burns down, your inventory shouldn't go with it. Cloud backup solves this automatically.