Protect Your Home and Office Inventory – A True Story!
Have you experienced an unexpected, unwanted and definitely unplanned event that changed your life? I have…and I’ve been continuing to use those lessons to benefit my home and office organizing clients. My experience was a two year long venture – which I’ll share later! This is a
Over the weekend, I had another client experience her own event. We have been working together for 2 years…these will be some absolutely awesome before and after pictures. We are about 80% completed with two rooms of the basement. The rooms will be used for a “gaming room” and a “craft room”.
This weekend a totally unexpected event happened that definitely reinforces my thoughts about protecting and organizing your home and office. I went around the corner to take out the few boxes of items that we were eliminating this trip and stopped dead in my tracks. Calmly and quietly, I asked my client to please come to the back door.
It was a typical back door with 12 small glass panes on the top and it was solid at the bottom. Only, now one of the panes had a 4 inch hole in it and the entire glass panel was shattered. And about three feet away on the floor sat a rock. She remembered, while on vacation, that her friend received a call from the security company that the alarm had gone off. She really didn’t think anything about it. She just assumed that either it was an accident or, if the police were called, they didn’t find anything. Now she was second guessing herself because, being a widow, she had no idea that she had been totally vulnerable for over 3 weeks.
My point to this story…Home and Office Inventory. Do you know what you have? What if someone broke into your home or office? Would you be able to pull a list of the inventory of your home or office and quickly and easily make a claim to your insurance company? Would the loss of your office inventory shut down your business? This may be something worth thinking about.
Once you get past the stress and anxiety of someone intruding into your space, it can be difficult to begin to think about what is missing. This is where having a home and office inventory system is a necessity. Here are some of my guidelines. These have not been verified with an insurance agency for verification but are based on conversations with a few of my local insurance agencies (and my personal opinions too).
- Documentation of all of your valuable items, including the serial numbers, along with a picture
- Sales receipts for these items all stored in one place – one file that you could grab and take out the door in case of an emergency.
- Keep all of your information stored in two ways – electronically and with a hard copy
- The copy of your home and office inventory that is kept on site should be in a place that is inconspicuous.
- A second copy of all of your information should be kept off site – or outside your home or office.
This really short list can be daunting to put together, especially if you have a lot of material things. Being prepared and keeping everything organized will ease the stress of trying to recover and replace these items. And, there is a good chance that your insurance company will be able to reimburse you for your loss quickly and you will be able to replace your items immediately.
And…lastly, be proactive and check all of the doors in your home and office frequently – even if you don’t use them often!
Linda Clevenger
Professional Organizer
www.organizationdirect.com
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