The term 'home inventory' can be misleading

The term “home inventory” can be misleading. It is commonly used to talk about “personal property” whether in the home or elsewhere. There are home inventory service providers who document the contents of houses. However, some of these service providers also provide inventories of the assets in businesses, storage units, trucks, trailers, RVs and garages.

The inventory documentation is important for pre-nuptial and divorce agreements, estate planning, estate settlement and financial planning. However, the most common reason to create an inventory of your personal property is to maximize an insurance claim.

Most agents stated that they encourage their customers to record their contents, but they know that very few actually complete the task. So to find out what types of inventories our readers have – if any - we conducted a survey. The results showed that only 9% have an inventory of the contents in their homes.

Surprisingly, a much larger percentage document their belongings located elsewhere. Where do you think that would be?