Recent disasters that have swept the nation, from flash floods in North Carolina to the fires are still raging in Southern California, showed how important it is to have an evacuation plan because you may only have seconds to decide what items to take with you while evacuating.
While caring for your loved ones during this extremely stressful time should be a top priority, it’s inevitable that you’ll have to rebuild your home and life, which may mean giving your insurance provider detailed accounts of what you’ve lost.
Trying to figure out what to do when you’re given seconds or minutes to evacuate or have to file detailed insurance claims afterward can be a painful and confusing process.
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Why it’s important to keep track of your home inventory
Home inventory and restoration apps can give you a tool to list and track every item in your home. Not only can it this application they help you stay organized and fiscally responsible for everyday home projects, but they can also help you easily determine what you need to grab and where it would be when you have limited time to grab items to take with you when you evacuate. It’s important to determine where and what to prioritize, especially if your home is at risk.
These apps can centralize all the information about your home so you can stay within budget for home projects and maintenance work, and they can help you if you ever have to file a claim after any disaster. It can also help make your home safer with routine maintenance. Additionally, creating a home inventory can help you determine if you have the right amount insurance coverage. Some applications allow you to transfer important documents for your home in general or specific items. This means that if you ever face a worst-case scenario and can’t retrieve all of your important home documents, your apps will store them for you and be accessible via your phone or computer.
Here are our top picks for apps that are best at monitoring your home before or after a disaster.
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Top 5 apps for home inventory and management
1. HomeZada
A comprehensive home management platform, HomeZada helps homeowners manage all aspects of their home, including but not limited to: maintenance, finances, inventory and improvement projects. Acting as a central hub for organizing and tracking important home-related information, it will help you track, locate, salvage important items and make insurance claims easier.
Key features of HomeZada
- Home maintenance monitoring: Create and schedule maintenance tasks such as HVAC servicing or gutter cleaning; receive routine maintenance reminders so you have one less thing to remember and prevent early replacement costs and keep your home running safer and smoother
- Home inventory management: The ability to categorize inventory for all your indoor and outdoor spaces in a simplified way with an established template so you don’t have to start from scratch; assign photos, videos, receipts and warranty information for inventory items by room; critical for insurance and disaster recovery purposes
- Home improvement projects: It helps you budget, organize and track the progress of projects of all sizes around your home; store ideas, costs and documentation in one place to help with tax and resale purposes
- Insights into finances and assets: Track home equity and overall property value by tracking mortgage payments, utility bills, and other home-related expenses
- Storage of documents: Uses key security features to store important documents such as sales contracts, blueprints and device manuals
- Mobile access: Web and mobile app access makes it easy to manage your home wherever you are and however you want
Prices
HomeZada offers both free and premium plans. Premium plan features include providing additional tools for inventory management, financial tracking and project planning.
Website
For more information or to apply, click here.
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2. Centriq
While not as comprehensive as Homezada, Centriq has a strong focus on home management, centralizing everything you need to organize, troubleshoot, operate and maintain your home.
Key features of Centriq
- Manage paperwork: Scan barcodes on appliances and home purchases, giving you access to manuals and warranty information; photograph product receipts along with photos and video
- Maintenance monitoring: Add reminder tasks to any item in the app
- Mobile access: Web and mobile app access makes managing your home easy
- Solve problems easily: Enter your product name or barcode with Centriq and get relevant troubleshooting videos to help you solve your problem
- Ease of replacement and repair: Centriq will guide you to the correct replacement parts and accessories by simply entering your model number
Prices
Centriq offers both free and premium plans. Some of the additional features of the Premium plan include interactions between multiple properties and shared access for multiple users.
Website
For more information or to apply, click here.
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3. NAIC Home Inventory
NAIC Home Inventory App (NAIC)
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has created the NAIC Home Inventory App to help you if you need to file a claim as well as provide expert advice. The app displays a simple, clean design of the inventory section with built-in room suggestions. Although a little more general than some of its competitors, this app helps you create a detailed inventory of your home if you need to file an insurance claim in the future.
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Key Features of the NAIC Home Inventory App
- Access to expert advice: Access informative guides from experts on insurance requirements and disaster mitigation
- Home inventory management: Add or delete rooms suggested in the inventory section; use the barcode scanning feature to easily retrieve an item’s serial number; add photos and video of the items
- Mobile access: Web and mobile app access makes managing your home easy
- Access to information: It allows you to export your inventory as a .CSV file without photos or as a PDF with photos
Prices
The NAIC Home Inventory app is free.
Website
For more information or to apply, click here.
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4. Itemtopia
Itemtopia app (Itemtopia)
Unlike its namesake, Itemtopia actually goes beyond listing your stuff. Available in more than 170 countries worldwide, the application allows you to manage services, warranties and medical records. A rich and interactive app helps you get started with ease by incorporating AI intelligence.
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Key Features of Itemtopia
- Home inventory management: Add or delete items under “Locations” or “Item Collections”; add photos and videos of the items along with warranties and receipts
- Life management tools: Add medical records by individual, bills by service, and even manage pet vet appointments through the app
- Mobile access: Web and mobile app access makes managing your home easy
- Access to information: Allows you to share export inventory as a .CSV file without photos or as a PDF with photos via email, text and other channels
Prices
Itemtopia offers both free and premium plans. Some of the additional features of the Premium plan include more storage (up to 2GB or approximately 3,000 items), the option to add more users, and the ability to list items for sale via a share link.
Website
For more information or to apply, click here.
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5. Circle it
Originally created for home restorers and insurance adjusters, Encircle is a professionally focused app that can help homeowners stay disaster prepared. This app helps you quickly capture objects in your home. Due to its focus on industry professionals, some features and terminology may be confusing or unnecessary for the average homeowner.
Key features for Encircle
- Assessment of damage to the house: Easily document damage and restoration progress, collaborate with contractors, and report a complete picture of property loss
- Inventory management: Take photos, videos and notes and organize them by room; generate reports to instantly detail the loss story; ensure the highest level of accuracy with time/date, user and GPS metadata
- Mobile access: Web and mobile app access makes managing your home easy
- Access to information: Share a link to your Encircle inventory via text or email; access the spreadsheet view by logging into the web version of Encircle; create a PDF version of your inventory with photos using the app’s “generate report” feature.
Prices
Encircle offers free and paid packages. Users can use the home inventory app for up to two houses for free. Encircle’s renewal software has a free 14-day trial, but is otherwise a monthly or annual subscription.
Website
For more information or to apply, click here.
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It’s easy to feel chaotic and overwhelmed when disaster strikes or when friends or family members are struggling with major losses in their home and safety. However, there are home apps that can help you create a plan before and after a disaster so you have one less problem to deal with while you mourn your losses. While there’s hope that disasters won’t happen to you, these apps I’ve mentioned will help you know, organize, and rebuild your home in the event of a disaster. With some of the easiest and best ways to create a home inventory, it will give you peace of mind and a proactive way to respond in an emergency.
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Are you prepared for a possible emergency evacuation? Did you survive the disaster? What did you learn and what would you do differently? Let us know by writing to us at Cyberguy.com/Contact.
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