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How do I make a home inventory before storm season? One hour now, a calmer claim later.
The busiest stretch of the Gulf season arrives in late summer. This is the one piece of preparation that costs nothing, takes about an hour, and does its best work months later, when someone finally asks what was inside your home.
The Answer
Make a home inventory by walking every room with your phone camera, narrating as you go, opening everything that closes, giving big-ticket items a close-up, and storing the video off the property. Then read the list against your declarations page. One hour of footage turns a claim from a memory test into an open-book test.
Why make the inventory before the season peaks?
Because proof of what you owned can only be created while you still own it. After a storm the phone lines are long, the adjusters are booked, and every family on the block is trying to reconstruct the same week from memory. A list filmed in July is calm, complete, and stamps its own date. A list built after a loss is guesswork under pressure, assembled during the worst week to be doing paperwork. Our 2026 hurricane checklist covers the supplies, the plan, and the house itself. This is the companion chapter, the proof of everything inside it.
The One-Hour Walkthrough
Film every room like you are giving a tour
Stand in the doorway, pan slowly, and narrate as you go. Say the brand of the television, where the sofa came from, roughly when the refrigerator arrived. Video beats photos here because it captures a whole room at once, records your voice, and stamps its own date. Ceiling to floor, then move to the next room.
Open everything that closes
Drawers, closets, cabinets, the attic, the garage, under the beds. The most commonly forgotten property lives behind doors a walkthrough never opens, and closed doors are where the tools, the linens, and the boxes you only open in December quietly add up. Thirty extra seconds a room is all the hiding places ask.
Give the big-ticket items their close-up
Serial numbers, model plates, jewelry, firearms, instruments, art, and the good tools deserve individual shots. If a receipt or an appraisal exists, film it right beside the item. Standard Texas home policies also put special caps on some of these categories, which makes this footage the exact evidence a scheduling conversation needs later.
Get the footage off the property
A copy that lives in the house shares the house's risk. Upload the video to cloud storage, email yourself the file, and share access with someone who lives outside the Houston area. Drop a photo of your declarations page and your agent's contact into the same folder, and the whole claim kit travels with your phone.
Read your list against your declarations page
This is the step that turns a chore into coverage. Your personal property limit, known as Coverage C, is usually set as a percentage of your dwelling limit, and the walkthrough you just filmed is the honest test of whether that number fits your life. The Texas Department of Insurance home insurance guide explains the standard coverages, and our declarations page walkthrough shows you exactly where each number lives.
The Special Personal Property Categories
Jewelry and watches. Firearms and their accessories. Silverware and goldware. Fine art, rugs, and collectibles. Furs. Musical instruments. Coins, cards, and cash. These are the categories standard Texas policies cap, mostly for theft, and the caps run lower than most owners expect. What the caps really are, and the right way to raise them, gets its own full guide here.
Run your list against your policy
Connect your policy through our secure review page, and a licensed McDade broker reads your limits beside your new list, months before anyone needs them to match.
Match My List to My PolicyHow long does this really take?
About an hour for most Houston homes, freezer to attic, and it never has to be perfect to be useful. A rough video filmed this weekend beats a flawless plan that never happens. Update it when something expensive arrives, glance at it each June, and then let it quietly do nothing for years. That is the point. And when you do bring it to us, we translate the contract before claim time, so the list and the policy finally get read side by side.
After a storm I can tell within a few minutes which families made a list and which ones are working from memory. The list settles faster and argues less. One hour with your phone camera is the cheapest peace of mind I can recommend.
Charles McDade, LUTCF · Founder, McDade Insurance Brokerage Group
Common questions about home inventories
How long does a home inventory take?
About an hour for most homes when you use the room-by-room video method. Larger homes and serious collections take longer, and that extra time is exactly where the money is. Done beats perfect, so film the rough version this weekend and refine it whenever new purchases arrive.
Do I need receipts for everything to file a claim?
No. Insurance companies want a credible record of what you owned, and a narrated video with close-ups carries most contents claims. Receipts, appraisals, and serial numbers strengthen the big-ticket items, so film them beside the item whenever they exist. The inventory exists so you are never reconstructing a home from memory.
Where should I store my home inventory?
Off the property. Cloud storage, an emailed copy, and a shared copy with someone outside the Houston area all work, and using two of the three is even better. Keep a photo of your declarations page and your agent's contact information in the same folder so the whole kit is one tap away.
Are jewelry, firearms, and collectibles fully covered by home insurance?
Often not at full value. Standard Texas home policies place special limits on categories like jewelry, firearms, silverware, and collectibles, especially for theft, and those limits surprise many families at claim time. Scheduling the items or adding an endorsement raises the protection, and the close-up footage from your walkthrough is exactly what that conversation needs.
Does it cost anything to review my inventory and policy with McDade?
No. The review is free advisory work, and McDade does not charge broker fees for personal lines clients. About 40 percent of the time we tell clients to stay with their current carrier, and sometimes even with their current agent, because that is the right answer for the family.
The storm gets a season. Your proof takes an hour.
Film the walkthrough this weekend, then connect your policy, and a licensed McDade broker reads your limits beside your list, quotes across the 50+ top Texas carriers we know well when the fit is wrong, and tells you plainly when it is already right.
The review is free. The decision is yours. No broker fees for personal lines clients.
