Suppose your home was damaged severely in a hurricane or during the fires that hit Colorado recently. Apart from having a damaged home, most of your personal properties were also destroyed. You want to start anew, rebuild your home and reacquire personal properties once more. However, you do not have the necessary funds to do that.
You recall taking insurance on your home along with the personal properties in it. You call your insurance company and its representatives confirm that you indeed have an insurance coverage that includes personal properties. However, they ask you to submit a proof or a log of all your personal belongings and items that were in your house before the fire or the hurricane damaged it, otherwise, your insurance claim for these personal properties will not prosper. You end up feeling that all is lost and since you have no way of proving your personal properties, there is absolutely no way for you to claim on the insurance proceeds.
While you may not have an inventory of all the personal items in your home before it was damaged by a fire or a hurricane, you can still pursue your insurance claim. You can expect, however, that your claim can take a bit longer to process and collect on as opposed to the claims of people who have inventories of their personal properties. There are other ways to prove your personal belongings and you can use the following for this purpose:
- Personal List. Try to recall as many of your personal properties as possible. If you start staying in your new home, learn from this experience and make sure to keep an up-to-date and ongoing inventory of your personal belongings and the items in your home to save you time and money the next time you may need to claim on your insurance.
- Credit Card and Bank Statements. If you purchased items using your credit or debit card, you can simply request for copies of your records or statements of account from the bank or the credit card company. Your purchases will be listed down in these documents and you can present these to the insurance company to prove that you actually owned these items when the fire or hurricane damaged your home.
- Photos and Videos. If you are fond of taking videos and photos at home during special occasions or whenever, you can use these videos and photos to show the items that were inside your home when it was damaged by the fire or hurricane. Your and your family’s photos taken elsewhere may also be used as proof that you owned certain personal belongings like a watch or jewelry.
- Receipts and Warranties. If by some chance you have a habit of keeping receipts and warranties of items you bought and you were able to save them, you can also use these to prove that you actually owned these items when the fire or hurricane hit your home.
If the insurance company still insists on getting that inventory of your items and personal belongings at home despite your production of the above-listed proofs, you may consult an experienced insurance claims lawyer who can negotiate with the insurance company for you.
