Recent floods prove need for business and home inventory

The flooding Indiana and other states experienced this year will be top of mind for a long, long time. Many people are still struggling to recover from their losses. And unfortunately, some will not recover at all. On the other hand, many were untouched by the rising waters, mud slides, backed up sewers and torrential rains.

Whether you currently face a loss or were one of the fortunate ones, I must assume that everyone now realizes how important it is have an inventory of their belongings. Also called a personal property inventory, this documentation records your contents of your home or business with photographs and a detailed written report.

Some business owners state they’ll just use their depreciation schedule to pull the information together if they have to file an insurance claim. However, how many items are owned by your company that have a price tag of under $500 (which means they aren't on a depreciation schedule)? Probably the majority of them. If you need to file a claim, that list will only be the tip of the iceberg in helping you remember and list everything you own.

Talk to your insurance agent; he or she will confirm the importance of an inventory. You’ll recover faster because you have a head-start on creating your list of lost or damaged items. Adjusters state that those without an inventory take 4-12 months to file a claim, while those with an inventory begin the claims process within 36-48 hours. That is a huge difference, especially when you need to spend your time getting your business up and running again.

An inventory will take the fear out of facing another disaster and, though not measurable, your peace of mind is valuable.

There are many other reasons to have a list of your belongings besides disaster recovery.

Most small-to-medium sized business owners agree it is important, but few have an inventory. Reasons cited for not maintaining a personal property inventory are that they and their employees are too busy, it takes too long, they don’t know how, or realize they will not keep it up to date if they do create one.

If you are in one of these categories, seek the assistance of a professional to provide the service for you. Verify they are bonded and insured. In addition to the inventory service, the provider should also include secure backup of your records and have a process in place to update your records annually. Without the updates, the report will be outdated very quickly.

An asset inventory is extremely valuable when trying to recover from a disaster.