Contents List for an Insurance Claim

The Contents List: Where Insurance Claims Are Won and Lost

After a fire or a flood, the adjuster hands you some forms and asks for a list of everything you owned.

Most people underestimate. Badly. They walk through a burned house from memory, write down the obvious things, and settle for a fraction of what was actually lost — because nobody told them that the contents list is the claim.

We're Insurance Claims Consultants. This page explains how to build one properly, room by room, and what carriers do with it afterwards.

Call (864) 497-2151. First conversation is free.

Why the List Decides the Settlement

Structure damage is measured by someone else. A contractor walks the building, an estimator prices the repair, and the number is largely out of your hands.

Contents are different. The burden is on you to list what you owned. Anything you don't write down isn't claimed, and anything you can't describe is undervalued.

Which is why this is the part of a claim where the largest sums are quietly lost. Not through dispute or denial — through omission.

Think about one room in your house. Now count the things in it you'd have to buy again. The cupboard contents, the linen, the tools in the garage, the clothes in every wardrobe, the things in boxes you haven't opened in years. It is always more than people expect.

What to Record for Every Item

A usable contents list has six columns. Fewer than this and the carrier fills the gaps in their favour.

• Description — specific. Not "lamp" but "brass floor lamp, adjustable arm, cream shade."
• Brand and model where you know it. This matters enormously for electronics, appliances and tools.
• Where purchased — helps establish the price bracket even without a receipt.
• Age — approximate is acceptable. "About four years" is a usable answer.
• Replacement cost — what it costs to buy the same thing today, not what you paid.
• Condition before the loss — the column almost everyone omits, and the one that protects you from unfair depreciation.

List items individually. Don't lump. "Kitchen contents — $3,000" will be challenged and reduced. Forty-two separate lines will not.

Room-by-Room Checklist

Work through the house one room at a time and go through this list in each. It's easier than trying to remember everything at once, and it catches what a general walkthrough misses.

Every room
Flooring and rugs · curtains, blinds and fixings · light fittings and lamps · wall art and mirrors · furniture · cushions and throws · anything on shelves · electrical items · plants and planters

Kitchen
Appliances large and small · pots, pans and bakeware · crockery, glassware and cutlery · utensils and gadgets · food in cupboards, fridge and freezer · storage containers · linens and towels · bins, racks and organisers

Living areas
Seating · tables · media units · television, audio and games consoles · books, DVDs and records · board games · decorative items · fireplace tools

Bedrooms
Beds, mattresses and bases · wardrobes and drawers · all clothing, counted by type and quantity · shoes · coats · bedding, pillows and mattress protectors · jewellery · handbags · dressing table contents

Bathrooms
Towels and mats · toiletries and cosmetics · medicines · hair appliances · scales · cabinets and storage

Home office and study
Computers, monitors, printers and peripherals · desk and chair · filing and stationery · books and reference material · paperwork and records · software licences

Garage, shed and loft
Hand tools and power tools · garden equipment and mower · bicycles · sports gear · camping and outdoor equipment · seasonal decorations · luggage · paint and materials · stored boxes — and be honest about what was in them

Outdoors
Garden furniture · barbecue · play equipment · pots and planters · hoses and watering gear · outdoor lighting

Easily forgotten
Contents of the car if it was in the garage · items lent to or stored for others · a home business's stock and equipment · musical instruments · collections · framed photographs and albums · children's toys

When You Don't Have Receipts

Almost nobody does. Receipts are not the only evidence, and a carrier suggesting otherwise is overstating the requirement.

• Photographs taken for other reasons. Family photographs, social media posts, a listing when you bought the house — all show what was in the rooms.
• Bank and credit card statements. These reconstruct years of purchases and are usually retrievable online.
• Email. Order confirmations and delivery notes sit in most inboxes going back a decade.
• Retailer accounts. Amazon, John Lewis and most large retailers keep full order histories.
• Warranty and registration records for appliances and electronics.
• Current retail prices for the same or an equivalent item — that establishes replacement cost directly.
• Your own testimony. A detailed, consistent account of what you owned is evidence. It isn't dismissed simply because it lacks paper.

And do this before you need it: walk through the house filming on your phone, opening cupboards and drawers as you go. Ten minutes, stored somewhere that isn't the house.

Special Limits You Probably Don't Know About

Certain categories carry their own much lower limits, regardless of your overall contents coverage.

• Jewellery and watches — often capped at a figure well below a single good piece.
• Cash — usually a very small limit.
• Firearms
• Silverware and fine art
• Collections — coins, stamps, sports cards, wine
• Business property kept at home
• Electronics, on some policies

These are on your declarations page. Where you own something above the limit, it needs scheduling separately — and that is worth checking now rather than discovering afterwards.

The Depreciation Problem, and Why It Matters Per Item

Once the list is submitted, the carrier depreciates it. And this is where a thorough inventory earns its keep.

Insurance companies depreciate by age and category. A rug is a rug; four years old is four years old; apply the schedule and move on.

Consider two identical rugs bought on the same day. One goes in the entrance hall where everyone walks. The other goes in a guest room used twice a year.

Three years later the hall rug is worn through. The guest room rug is as new.

The carrier applies the same depreciation to both. That is not accurate, and it penalises you on the item that hadn't actually lost value.

Now apply that across a list running into the thousands of lines. The difference is not a rounding error.

Depreciation should reflect the condition of the specific item, not a schedule applied to its paper age. Which is why the condition column matters, and why each line has to be considered on its own.

How We Do It: The ICC Contents Loop

On a substantial loss we run a five-stage process. It's laborious, and that's the point.

1. Making the site safe. Before anyone goes in, walls are shored, floors and ceilings reinforced, and unstable structure taken down where it presents a danger. The property is boarded and secured with a lock-box, so the team can work and so you can retrieve what matters to you.

2. The onsite team. Every item that remains is identified and recorded. Where a fire has been severe, that means sifting the ash for the pieces of things — like prospecting. Nothing is lumped together unless items are identical in every respect. Each day's findings go to the next stage that evening.

3. Recording. The findings are entered into a spreadsheet built for the claim, with columns for description, where purchased, replacement cost, age, actual cash value and total. Each completed sheet passes to pricing.

4. Pricing. Every item is sourced individually and the correct replacement cost applied. The priced list comes back to you to be aged, because you know when you bought things.

5. Depreciation, line by line. A senior public adjuster applies depreciation to each item manually, taking condition and use into account rather than age and category alone. This is the stage that takes the longest and it's the one that changes the number.

It runs as a loop rather than a line — findings go forward, prices come back, ages go out, adjusted figures return. On a substantial contents claim it involves several people and a great many hours.

The alternative, which is what most people are offered, is a set of forms and "you're on your own" — or a carrier's own contents team, which will not inventory to this level because it isn't in their interest to.

After a Total Loss

When there's nothing left to walk through, the inventory has to be reconstructed from memory and records. It's difficult and it's doable.

• Work room by room mentally, in order, as though walking through the house. Don't try to list by category.
• Use floor plans or estate agent photographs if you have them.
• Ask family members separately. People remember different things, and children remember their own rooms in detail.
• Go through years of bank statements. Slow, and it recovers a great deal.
• Don't rush it. Items surface weeks later. Keep adding, and don't finalise the list because a deadline is approaching — request an extension instead.

And take your time over the parts that hurt. Photographs, letters, things belonging to people who have died. They may not be replaceable, but they're still a loss and they still belong on the list.

How We Help

When you hire us, we take the claim off your hands — including the inventory. We do the recording, the pricing and the depreciation, and we argue the per-item condition rather than accepting a schedule.

The contents list is the most laborious part of a claim and the part where most money is lost. It's also the part carriers are least inclined to help you with.

Anywhere in North Carolina, South Carolina or Georgia, call (864) 497-2151.