Film your house before you need the footage
One-time · any month works
Why it matters
Insurance claims run on evidence, and the evidence has a deadline nobody announces: it must exist BEFORE the bad day.
This walk also produces something with everyday value: one place where every serial number, model plate, and shutoff location in your house is recorded. Future service calls, warranty claims, and 2 a.m. emergencies all draw from it — and a documented maintenance history has real value the day you sell.
What skipping it costs
$5,000–$50,000
After a fire, flood, or break-in, your insurance payout is built from what you can prove you owned. Adjusters meet homeowners every week who are reconstructing a kitchen's contents from grief and memory — and settling for thousands less than they lost. The difference between that and a smooth claim is 45 minutes of narrated phone video that took no skill to make.
Two ways to get it done
Do it yourself
You'll need: Your phone, Free cloud storage — the video must live somewhere that isn't inside the house.
- Walk every room with your phone recording video, narrating as you go. Say what things are and roughly what they cost. Open closets, drawers with anything valuable, the garage, the shed. Slow pans beat fast ones.
- Get the data plates: water heater, furnace/AC (or heat pump), washer, dryer, fridge, dishwasher — film the model/serial sticker on each. These settle warranty and recall questions forever after.
- Film the electrical panel with the door open (labels legible), the main water shutoff, and the gas meter — location footage doubles as the household's where-things-are guide.
- Jewelry, instruments, tools, collections: individual shots, plus receipts or appraisals if they exist. High-value items may need to be "scheduled" on your policy — the video is how that conversation starts.
- Upload it somewhere off-site tonight. Cloud storage, or a relative's drive — footage that burns or floods with the house is a diary, not documentation.
- Redo the walk after major purchases or a renovation; otherwise it quietly holds.
Hire it out
$150–$400National fair range — local labor moves this number.
Professional inventory services ($150–$400) produce polished, valued, insurer-formatted inventories — legitimately worth it for estates, insurance riders, or a house full of scheduled valuables. For everyone else, the free version on your phone settles the same claims. Do the free version today either way; hire the upgrade if your policy or your stuff ever demands it.
Ask the tech
- Do you deliver a room-by-room inventory with serial numbers and replacement values, or just photos?
- What format does my insurer prefer for claims?
Red flags you're being upsold
- Paying for a 'home inventory service' before you've spent 45 free minutes with your own phone. The pro version is real for estates and high-value collections; for most houses it's outsourcing a walk.
The call
DIY it today — it's the easiest task in your entire year and the one you'll be most grateful for exactly once.