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How to Make a Home Inventory (and Whether You Need a Home Inventory App)

NestBoard · 2026-10-13

A home inventory is a list of what you own, with enough detail that your insurance company can pay you for it after a fire, a burst pipe or a break-in. Most people put it off because it sounds like a weekend spent cataloging spoons. It is not. A phone and one afternoon get you most of the way, and a home inventory app makes the rest easier, but you do not need one to start.

We make NestBoard, a family organizer. It is not a home inventory app, and further down we say plainly which part of the job it handles and which part it does not. Judge the rest of this guide with that in mind.

Why make a home inventory at all

After a loss, your insurer asks you to list what was damaged or taken: what it was, when you bought it, and what you paid. Doing that from memory, in a house that just flooded, is miserable, and people forget whole categories of things. As the National Association of Insurance Commissioners puts it, "An accurate home inventory gives your insurance carrier the information they need to help settle your claims."

It helps in quieter ways too:

• Choosing your coverage. Adding up what you own tells you whether your policy's limit for personal belongings is anywhere close to right.
• Moving. The same list works as a packing and unpacking record.
• Handing things over. If someone else ever has to deal with the house, a list of what is in it and where saves them a lot of guessing.

What to record for each item

You do not need every field for every item. A kitchen spatula gets a line in a video. A TV, a laptop or a washing machine gets the full treatment.

Jewelry, watches, art and collectibles deserve extra attention. Many home policies cap what they pay for categories like these, so once they are on your list, ask your insurer whether they need their own coverage.

How to make a home inventory in one afternoon

1. Start with a video walkthrough. Walk every room with your phone recording and say what you are looking at: "Living room. The TV, bought in 2023, about $900." Open closets, cupboards and drawers. Film the garage and the shed. If you stop after this step, you are still far ahead of having nothing.
2. Photograph the serial number labels. Take a close-up of the label on the fridge, washer, dryer, furnace, water heater, TV and laptop. A photo beats copying a long code by hand.
3. Photograph the valuable things and their paperwork. Jewelry, watches, bikes, instruments, art. Get a clear shot of the item and of any receipt or appraisal.
4. Turn it into a list, one small area at a time. The Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) suggests starting with a contained space, like one kitchen cabinet or the sports closet. A finished drawer feels like progress. A half-finished house does not.
5. Store a copy outside the house. A record that burns with the house is no record. Save the video and photos to cloud storage, email the list to yourself, or leave a copy with a relative. Triple-I's own guide says to keep a paper copy outside the home and a digital copy on an external drive or online storage.
6. Put the next update on the calendar. More on that below.

A room-by-room home inventory checklist

Use this as the skeleton for your list. The everyday items are the ones people skip, and they are the ones that add up. Towels, bedding and clothes are cheap one at a time and expensive to replace all at once.

• Kitchen: refrigerator, range, dishwasher, microwave, small appliances like the coffee maker and mixer, cookware, knives, dishes and glassware.
• Living room: TV, speakers, game consoles, sofa and chairs, rugs, lamps, art, books.
• Bedrooms: bed frames and mattresses, dressers, clothing, shoes, coats, jewelry and watches, bedding.
• Kids' rooms: toys, bikes and scooters, tablets and game systems, furniture, sports gear.
• Bathrooms: towels, hair dryers and styling tools, whatever lives under the sink.
• Home office: computer, monitors, printer, desk and chair.
• Laundry and utility: washer, dryer, furnace, water heater, water softener, dehumidifier.
• Garage, shed and yard: tools, lawn mower, ladders, grill, patio furniture, bikes, sporting goods, holiday decorations.
• Closets and storage: luggage, seasonal clothes, and the boxes in the attic nobody has opened since the last move.

Do you need a home inventory app?

No, but the right one helps. Here is how the common approaches compare.

If you want a dedicated app and would rather not pay for one, start with the NAIC Home Inventory app from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, the organization of state insurance regulators. It is free on the App Store and Google Play. You can photograph your belongings, group them by room or category, scan barcodes, and export the whole inventory whenever you need it.

Whichever you pick, run one test: if your phone were lost along with everything else, could another adult in the house still find the list and open it? If not, sort out where it is stored before you add another item.

Where NestBoard fits, and where it does not

NestBoard is a family organizer: a shared calendar, chores, meals and the rest of running a household. One part of it overlaps with a home inventory. The Maintenance page keeps a list of the durable things your household owns and looks after, which it calls assets: the furnace, the water heater, the washer, the car.

Each asset has a name and a category (Appliance, HVAC, Vehicle, Structure, or Other), plus optional fields for where it lives, the make, model, serial number, purchase date, warranty end date, and notes. Those are exactly the details you would want for a big appliance on an insurance list, and they are the hardest ones to dig up later, because the label is behind the machine or inside the door.

The reason to keep them in NestBoard rather than in a separate list is that the same record does double duty. The water heater's model number sits next to the "Flush water heater" task that comes due once a year, and a note about last spring's repair lives in the same place. It is saved to the household, not to one person's phone, so another adult can look up the furnace's model number when the repair company asks for it.

What it does not do, so you can plan around it:

• No photos or receipts. Assets hold text, not pictures or files. Keep the video and photos from your walkthrough in cloud storage or an inventory app.
• No value field. If you want the purchase price next to the item, type it into the notes.
• No warranty alerts. The warranty end date is stored so you can find it, but NestBoard does not remind you before it runs out. If one matters, put a reminder on the calendar a month ahead.
• Not for everyday contents. Nobody should enter every sweater as an asset. Assets are for the appliances, systems and vehicles you maintain.

So a sensible split looks like this: the video, the photos and the full contents list go in cloud storage or a dedicated app, and the appliances, heating and cooling, and vehicles go in NestBoard, where they also get an upkeep schedule. Adding one takes a minute on the Maintenance page, or you can tell Robin, the assistant built into NestBoard, "add our water heater." If Maintenance is not on your menu, an adult can switch it on under Settings, then Modules.

Keep it current without having to remember

An inventory from five years ago is missing everything you bought since. Two habits keep it close to right.

• Add big purchases when they arrive. Photograph the item, its serial number and the receipt before the box goes out to the recycling. Triple-I's advice is the same: add new purchases while the details are fresh.
• Review it once a year. Walk the house again, film anything new, and cross off what you got rid of. If you use NestBoard, add a maintenance task called "Update the home inventory" that repeats every 365 days. It shows up on the dashboard when it comes due, alongside the furnace filter, instead of depending on someone to remember it.

Moving is the other natural moment, since you are handling every object anyway. Our moving checklist covers the rest of that job. And for the upkeep side of the same appliances, the free home maintenance checklist builds a seasonal list from what your home actually has, and our guide to tracking household maintenance and repairs covers logging the repairs as they happen.

NestBoard has a 14-day free trial with no card required, at mynestboard.com.

Frequently asked questions

What should a home inventory include? For each item: what it is, its brand and model, where it is in the house, when you bought it, what you paid, and the serial number if it has one. Add photos or a video, and keep receipts and appraisals for anything valuable. Everyday things like clothing, towels and bedding belong on it too, because they add up.

Is there a free home inventory app? Yes. The NAIC Home Inventory app from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners is free on the App Store and Google Play. It lets you photograph items, group them by room or category, scan barcodes and export your inventory. A phone video saved to cloud storage is also a free way to start.

How often should you update a home inventory? Add big purchases as you buy them, and do a full walkthrough once a year. A move, a renovation or a large purchase like new furniture is a good reason to do it sooner.

Where should I keep my home inventory? Somewhere outside the house, so it survives whatever happens to the house. Cloud storage, a copy emailed to yourself, or a copy with a relative all work. Make sure another adult in the household knows where it is.

Do renters need a home inventory? Yes. The landlord insures the building, but your belongings are yours, and they are what a renters insurance claim is about. A list made before anything goes wrong makes that claim far easier.

Is NestBoard a home inventory app? Not a full one. NestBoard's Maintenance page stores the durable things your household owns and maintains, like appliances, heating and cooling equipment, and vehicles, with make, model, serial number, purchase date and warranty end date. It does not store photos, receipts or item values, so pair it with a video walkthrough or a dedicated inventory app for the rest of your belongings.