Documenting Your Valuables & Keeping Insurance Up to Date

Documenting Your Valuables & Keeping Insurance Up to Date

While installing CCTV coverage and other means to safeguard your property is without doubt one of the safest deterrents to stop would be burglars, there are sensible additional measures that most households or businesses should take. These may not only make the potential recovery of items easier but may also help with any insurance claims that may need to be made.

Keep a Record of Your Valuables

Mainstream items like domestic electronics, televisions, cameras, electronic items such as iPads etc., will be relatively easy to cross reference and find proof of purchase for. Other items such as personal jewellery or other items that have been passed through the family such as antiques and family heirlooms may be harder to prove you originally owned.

For these kind of items, we suggest that you keep an inventory that has both a description, recent valuation and photographs to make insurance claims not only easier but also help with potential identification and recovery.

Keep Your Insurance Up to Date

Ensure that you make time to periodically update your insurance cover and that you itemise any recent high ticket purchases you have made. As a separate caveat, check that your current business or home insurance covers high-value contents – some policies may not cover items over a certain threshold. It is not uncommon that policy holders find that their latest hi tech television for example, valued at several thousand dollars, is not fully covered as the individual item cover level is too small.

Keep Valuations Up to Date

For personal items that may have been in the family for a long time such as jewellery, antiques and other family heirlooms handed down through the generations, we strongly urge you to have an up to date valuation. A valuation can work the same way as a proof of purchase. Once your items are valued, ensure you add this to your inventory with the valuation record and images. In line with the cap that may exist across high-value items, ensure that these items fall within the limit or extend your insurance cover.

Use the Cloud

Tap into the latest technology and keep photos of items, inventories and valuations in the cloud so that you can access it from anywhere. We often hear of people who have lost all documentation through a stolen laptop or desktop computer and if this is their sole data point, all records will be lost too.

Have Regular Stock Takes

Businesses will have to take slightly different measures to safeguard their assets. In addition to CCTV and the latest security technology, businesses should stay on top of recording their stock levels, secure removable computer technology and ensure that data is again cloud secure in the event of hard drives and servers being stolen.

Adeva Security provide a wide range of home and business security services including the full installation and maintenance of CCTV to protect both residential and business owners. Talk to our team today on 1300 773 633 to see how we can help.