Home Inventory for Insurance: What to Record So You Can Actually Claim (UK Guide)
On this page
- What is a home inventory?
- Underinsurance and the average clause
- What to record for every item
- High-value vs everyday items
- How to build your inventory
- Receipts: what counts as proof of ownership
- Where to store it, and why it must live outside the home
- When to update it
- New-for-old vs indemnity
- Paper list, spreadsheet, app, or QR labels?
- How JustTaggit helps
- Further reading
Could you name every item in your living room right now, with make, model, and what you paid? Most people can't, and that's the problem. Contents insurance pays out on proof of loss, so without an inventory your claim is only as good as your memory: slower to settle, capped at the insurer's estimate, or challenged outright.
The scale of it: Uswitch estimates that around 76% of UK homes may be underinsured, meaning many households would struggle to fully rebuild or replace their possessions after a claim. And claims are common enough to matter. Police recorded 223,456 burglaries in England and Wales in the year ending March 2026, a 9% fall on the previous year but still more than 600 a day.
The fix is unglamorous and it works: record each item's brand, model, serial number, purchase date, price and receipt, photograph it, and keep a copy of the whole thing somewhere outside your home. This guide covers what to record, what UK insurers accept as proof, and how to stop the inventory going stale.
What is a home inventory?
A home inventory is a structured record of what you own: item name, make and model, serial number, purchase date, price paid, receipt, condition, and the room it lives in.
It does two jobs. Before a claim, it tells you what your contents are genuinely worth, so you insure the right amount. After a loss, it's the evidence your insurer needs to value and settle the claim, instead of asking you to reconstruct years of purchases from memory in a house that's just been burgled.
Underinsurance and the average clause
Underinsurance is the quiet problem behind a lot of disappointing settlements. It means insuring your belongings for less than they're actually worth, usually because the figure was a guess at the start and has sat unchanged ever since.
At claim time, many UK policies apply the average clause: your payout is reduced in proportion to how far short your cover fell. Insure £20,000 of contents that are really worth £30,000, and a £6,000 claim can be cut by a third to £4,000, before your excess comes off.
Given Uswitch's estimate that around 76% of homes may be underinsured, this isn't a rare edge case. Inventory first, cover amount second. You can't accurately insure what you've never itemised.
What to record for every item
The more complete each entry, the less room there is for an insurer to estimate low.
| Field | Why it matters | How to capture it fast |
|---|---|---|
| Item name and description | Identifies what was lost | Take the model name from the box or the label |
| Make or brand | Sets the replacement baseline | Photograph the brand logo or label |
| Model number | Insurers price by exact model | Photograph the label, usually on the back or underside |
| Serial number | Strongest proof of ownership, and helps police recovery | Photograph the label, zoomed in enough to read |
| Purchase date | Needed for new-for-old and wear calculations | Check the email receipt or bank statement |
| Price paid | Your evidence of value | Screenshot the order confirmation |
| Receipt or proof of purchase | Primary evidence of ownership | Photograph paper receipts, save email ones |
| Condition | Affects indemnity-value payouts | One clear photo, and note any wear or damage |
| Room or location | Confirms the item was in the home | Add it while you're walking the room |
| Photo or video | Evidence of existence and condition | Walk-through video per room, zooming on serials |
| Value against single-item limit | Jewellery, bikes and tech often have per-item caps | Check your policy schedule and note the cap |
High-value vs everyday items
Not everything needs the same depth of record. High-value items carry per-item limits and need more evidence behind them.
| High-value items (jewellery, art, bikes, watches, expensive tech) | Everyday items (clothes, tools, kitchenware, books) | |
|---|---|---|
| Typical policy treatment | Per-item limits; may need listing on the policy or separate cover | Covered by the overall sum insured |
| Evidence expected | Receipt, valuation certificate, photos, serial number | Receipt or reasonable estimate; photos help |
| Valuation | Often needs a professional valuation above roughly £1,000 | Valued at replacement cost, not resale value |
| What to record | Full details, plus the valuation letter and serial number | Group by category with a total, and photograph the lot |
If a single item, a bike or a ring or a camera, exceeds your policy's single-item limit, the excess value usually isn't covered at all. Recording value against the cap is how you find those gaps before a claim does.
How to build your inventory
Start with the most valuable room and work down. An hour a day across a weekend covers a typical three-bed house.
- Walk each room, highest value first. Bedrooms and living room, then kitchen, garage and shed.
- Shoot a walk-through video per room, narrating what you're looking at and zooming in on serial number labels. It's fast, and it captures the everyday items you'd otherwise skip.
- Don't skip the boring categories. Clothes, tools, kitchenware and books are the most under-recorded and routinely add up to thousands. Group them: "winter coats x6, approx £450".
- Photograph labels, not just items. The model and serial number label is what insurers and police actually work from.
- Use your insurer's app if they offer one. Several have free inventory tools already formatted for their own claims team.
- Then check your sums. Add it up and compare the total against your contents sum insured. That's your underinsurance test, and it's the step most people never do.
If you're moving house, do this as you unpack rather than after. Our moving house appliance documents checklist covers the appliance paperwork side of the same job.
Receipts: what counts as proof of ownership
"Do I really need receipts?" is the question that stops most people starting. The answer is no, not exclusively. Insurers generally accept a range of evidence:
- Bank and credit card statements, where a matching transaction line is usually enough
- Email order confirmations, findable by searching your inbox for the retailer or item
- Manufacturer warranty registrations, which tie a serial number to your name
- Valuation certificates for jewellery, art and antiques
- Serial numbers and photos, which are the strongest combination for electronics and bikes
Serial numbers earn their keep here. One registered to you is hard to argue with, and it's what the police work from if an item is recovered. For phones specifically, that's the IMEI number. A photo of the label taken at purchase beats hunting for a receipt after a burglary.
Where to store it, and why it must live outside the home
The classic mistake: the only copy of the inventory is on the laptop that's just been stolen, or in the drawer that's just burned.
Keep two copies. One at home, where a printout in a drawer is fine, and one outside: cloud storage, or with a family member. A folder of cloud photos is better than nothing, but it isn't searchable. Proving "Sony Bravia KD-55X80L, serial 12345, £649, March 2024" means being able to type it, not scrolling through 400 photos while a claims handler waits.
When to update it
An inventory that's three years old is a guess with better formatting. Update it after any significant purchase, at every renewal (when your insurer asks you to confirm your contents value), and after moving house, since a move is when sums insured drift furthest from reality.
Ten minutes a month is the difference between a settled claim and a long argument.
New-for-old vs indemnity
Most UK contents policies are new-for-old: a ten-year-old TV is replaced with today's equivalent, minus your excess. Indemnity policies pay the current second-hand value, which for a ten-year-old TV is close to nothing.
New-for-old still only applies up to your sum insured and your per-item limits. Knowing which type you hold changes what you record: on indemnity cover, condition and purchase date carry the weight, while on new-for-old it's the model and current replacement price that matter.
Paper list, spreadsheet, app, or QR labels?
Your method needs to survive the event it exists for.
| Method | Upkeep effort | Searchable | Survives a house fire | Insurer acceptance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paper list | Low to start, but goes stale quickly | No | Only if stored off-site | Accepted but limited, with no photos or serials |
| Spreadsheet (cloud-backed) | Medium, since you have to remember to open it | Yes | Yes, if genuinely in the cloud | Good, and easy to export and share |
| Inventory app | Low, while you remember to use it | Yes | Depends on the app's backup | Good |
| QR-tagged inventory | Low, because you scan the item and update the record | Yes | Yes, records live in the cloud | Strong, with serials, receipts and photos held per item |
How JustTaggit helps
An inventory kept separately from your belongings goes stale fast, because updating it is a separate chore you have to remember. JustTaggit takes the opposite approach: a small QR label goes on each valuable item, and that item's full record, receipt photo, serial number, warranty and photos, lives behind it.
Scan a label and you see everything an insurer will ask for, without hunting through folders. Build the inventory room by room, tagging as you go, and it stays current with the items themselves. New TV arrives, tag it, done.
Build your inventory with QR labels →
Further reading
- Moving house: what appliance documents and records to keep: the paperwork to capture while you're unpacking anyway
- How to check if a used phone is stolen: UK IMEI check guide: how serial numbers work in practice when something is recovered
Frequently asked questions
Can I claim contents insurance without receipts?
In most cases yes. Receipts are the strongest proof of ownership, but bank and credit card statements, email order confirmations, warranty registrations, valuation letters and clear photos all help. Insurers will often accept a combination. The key is having something that links the item to you and indicates what you paid.
What counts as proof of ownership for an insurance claim?
Anything that ties an item to you: receipts, bank or card statements, order confirmations, warranty registration records, valuation certificates, and serial numbers logged in your name. Photos of the item in your home help too. The more evidence you can produce, the smoother the claim.
Do I need to list every single item in my house?
Not individually. Itemise anything worth roughly £50 or more, and photograph or group the rest room by room. The everyday things (clothes, tools, kitchenware, books) are the most commonly forgotten and often add up to thousands of pounds, so group them with an estimated total rather than skipping them.
What happens if my contents are worth more than my cover?
You're underinsured, and many policies apply an average clause. If you insured £20,000 of contents that turn out to be worth £30,000, your payout can be cut by a third before the excess is applied. The fix is an accurate inventory that tells you what cover to buy in the first place.
Do I need a home inventory if I rent?
Yes. Your landlord's insurance covers the building, not your belongings. You need tenants' contents insurance of your own, and it pays out on the same proof-of-loss basis, so the same inventory rules apply.
Should I keep paper receipts or photograph them?
Photograph them. Paper receipts fade, get thrown out, or burn with the house. A photo is easy to store, back up and attach to a claim. Save email receipts to a dedicated folder as well, and keep a copy somewhere outside the home.