26
Dec

Even the best fire mitigation plan doesn’t prevent all fires. After that, you need to go through everything that was lost in the fire. The inventory process is something you should do to prepare for a fire at the same time as fire mitigation processes.

The Surprising Cost of Replacing Everything

When you look around your home, you won’t think about the financial loss of a fire. Then you start to realize just how much everything adds up. Just think about how your TV costs hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of dollars, and look at the $5,000 that you could easily spend on houseplants.

Something that you may overlook at the tools that you use for fire mitigation in the first place. It can cost $3,500 just to replace them.

Then there’s the cost of your kitchen appliances outside of the big ticket items. Cookware and small appliances can easily end up costing $5,000 to replace. Your Japanese knife block will cost $1,500 to replace.

There are some items that you’ll need to estimate the value of because you no longer have receipts. This is common for clothes and antiques. You’ll need to look at eBay, Amazon, and other similar sites to get an idea. If you have designer clothes, look directly on those sites to see if they still have the items listed.

What about the kitchen? You don’t just need to replace appliances. There is food that will need to be replaced. A spice rack with around 30 bottles of spices is going to be around $150 to replace. The bottles of wine on your bar top could easily cost $10 to $50 to replace each one depending on the type of wine it is.

The Need for Good Inventory

You set a value for your home insurance in case there was total loss. However, when it comes to claiming on your insurance, a lot of companies don’t really like the idea of paying out. They want to see a good inventory list, and if you haven’t created one before the fire, it’s going to be more stressful putting one together afterward.

The good news is you can create a paper-based inventory that you put in your bug-out bag in the house or to store outside the house (so it doesn’t burn up!). This is free to do. It’s just arduous to keep up to date. Modern-day technology has made it possible to create an inventory system to store in the Cloud.

If you have an iPhone, invest $20 into an app called Home Inventory. This lays out each room in the house so you go through room by room and make sure you have everything.

Take photos of everything that you have. This is also a great way to prove that you had the items if your insurance company questions things.

There are some home services that you can hire to go through everything. These will cost around $500, but they help to keep the weight of missing items off your mind.

Once you have the inventory, you’ll need to keep it updated. Each time that you get a new item, you’ll need to add it to the list. Do it as you buy to help keep the process simple and stress-free.