Simple Ways to Inventory Your Horse Farm in case of a Disaster or Theft
God forbid that this will ever happen to you, but if you are one of the unfortunate ones the following may help to put additional claims dollars in your pocket. It is not a major ordeal to determine the cost to replace your home or barn, but what about the contents of your home (or barn)? In general terms the insurance adjustor will ask you to tell him everything that was in your home (barn) when it burned so that he can determine the value of your home (barn) contents. If you are looking at a pile of ashes where your home (barn) used to stand it is virtually impossible to remember everything that was in your home (barn). Ideally, the best thing to do is a written inventory of the contents of your home (barn) and keep it updated as you dispose or acquire new items. In 40 years I have only had one client that did this, but guess where he put the very detailed written inventory – in a desk drawer in his home. You can probably guess what happened next – right, his home burned to the ground along with his inventory.
A much simpler way to do this is with a video camera. Video every room in your home to include furniture, wall decorations, interiors of all the closets, open the kitchen cabinets and video the china, glassware, sliverware, etc. Lay your jewelry out on the dining room table and video the pieces. Finally, don’t put the video in your desk drawer at home! Put it in a safety deposit box or take it to your office. If you home should burn you can show the video to the adjustor and not have to try to remember everything that you owned. Doing this could literally mean thousands of additional dollars in your claim settlement amount!
You should also consider doing this in your barn – at least your tack room. If your barn burns or crooks clean out your tack room one night you will have a video record of your horse stuff.