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What is an Inventory?

Filed under: Asset Education, Photo Asset Archival, Protecting by Lizz @ 7:33 am on March 31, 2008
  • An inventory is in essence a SAFE within a safe; a visual and written documentation of the property you own, Securely Archived for Future Eventualities.
  • It is a comprehensive, multi-faceted record of your tangible assets, supporting documents, and documentation of real property improvements incorporating a variety of technology for proper information integration and time/date-stamping.  This integrated technology is composed of photographs, video footage, scanned documents, and a hand-written or computer archived database which links all the information together.  This database is analogous to medical life support when a catastrophic event befalls you.
  • A well thought-out inventory is an invaluable individual and professional planning tool, which can be shared with your insurance, estate, tax, financial, and business advisory team.

Have a question?  E-mail me at info@photoassetarchival.com; I’ll respond.  Have a  story to tell or an experience to share?  Blog back your story!

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Why Should I have an Inventory?

Filed under: Asset Education, Photo Asset Archival, Protecting by Lizz @ 8:05 am on March 28, 2008

I want to share a great example of why everyone should have an inventory. On December 23, 1982, I set my thermostat to 60 degrees, set my alarm system, locked the door, and Felix, my dog, and I drove from Atlanta, GA to spend Christmas with my Mom, in Virginia. The weather was a balmy 73 degrees. Two days later, one of those freaky storms blew in from the Gulf of Mexico and the temperature plummeted to 5 degrees below zero. Unbeknownst to me, my heating system malfunctioned and 33 pipes burst in my house, a historic property, which I had lovingly restored from roof to foundation. Late in the afternoon on Christmas Day, my next door neighbors noticed water seeping and freezing into icicles out of the brick from the third story. Thankfully, they had the presence of mind to go to the water shutoff value at the street. However, the damage was extensive. Ceilings fell, hardwood floors buckled, wallpaper slumped, paint blistered, plaster separated from lathe, and a sewer pipe in the basement cracked. I had not only a written and photographic inventory of the contents, but I also had a complete photographic record of the restoration process. I credit my Mother for teaching me how to do an inventory when I first left home in 1976, and first insurance agent, Larry Baumwald, for encouraging me to keep an updated contents and condition inventory.

Moral of the story: develop a relationship with a conscientious insurance agent, document your property, protect your property with the correct insurance policy, and take progress photographs during renovation.

Have a question? E-mail me at info@photoassetarchival.com; I’ll respond. Have a story to
tell or an experience to share? Blog back your story!

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