Whether you own or rent, live in a house, a townhouse, an apartment or even a tiny home, your home is probably full of your stuff. Though you may not think so at first, your stuff is likely worth quite a bit. Furniture, clothes, electronics - if your personal property were damaged, how much would it cost to replace? Adding it all up may seem overwhelming, but luckily, there’s an app for that. In fact, there are several apps and we rounded them up in search of the best home inventory apps.
A home inventory can help you organize and assess the value of the personal belongings inside your home. Once you know the value of your belongings, you can choose the appropriate insurance limits to help protect your stuff should the worst happen. If it did and you were to need to file a homeowners or renters insurance claim, that home inventory would be incredibly helpful in ensuring you’re made whole for the personal property losses you might face. Your home inventory is a handy place to store the information and documents your insurance company and agent will want to see to support a claim, like receipts, serial numbers and model numbers for your belongings.
A home inventory app is a great way to keep organized as you tally up your personal property. A home inventory should be stored somewhere safe outside your home (like in the cloud) and include important details. Details to add should include things like the price paid for items, receipts, serial numbers, and barcodes. Many of these apps include options like adding photos, barcodes, sorting items by room, and the opportunity to store the info in the cloud or export the info for saving into the cloud, all of which are features that are helpful during the claims process.
Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to try all of these apps, but we have scoured the App Store to find as many options as possible, read through the reviews and also combed through the product descriptions and screenshots to make sure that each of these has features that would assist if you needed to file a homeowners or renters insurance claim.
Here’s what we found (scroll down for the free apps!):
The Best Home Inventory Apps (By Price)
Home Inventory Apps for Purchase
Home Inventory
$39.99
iOS
At $38.99, it ranks most expensive among these home inventory apps, but that investment may pay off. With some of the highest reviews, this app certainly sounds like a great option from its reviewers. With tools geared specifically towards making sure you have proper insurance coverage for your home and its contents, this app is goes beyond your traditional home inventory and can be used as a tool for ensuring you have the right homeowners or renters insurance coverage in place.
With both desktop and app access, Home Inventory has sophisticated and robust features to help you add details about your home and personal belongings. Not only can you add notes, scan barcodes and attach multiple photos per item, you can also add in information about your home, including renovation details and lot surveys.
According to reviewer Steve1114, “The app performs beautiful. It makes a tedious chore fun. The developer backs their product. My insurance agent is impressed, and I have peace of mind. It all adds up to a superior User Experience.”
BluePlum Home Inventory
$17.99
iOS
They claim to be the most comprehensive app available, offering the ability to add items to various properties, rooms and collections. Multiple photos, videos and documents can be added to each item, as well as a host of fields prompting you to add important information, like name, make, model, purchase date and even annual depreciation rate.
BluePlum Home Inventory has only one review, but it is glowing! Based on the review, support for the app is excellent.
Nest Egg
$4.99
iOS
Nest Egg has all the key features you want from a home inventory app - ability to categorize your items, scan barcodes, add multiple photos per item, and backups and syncing so your inventory won’t be lost if your devices are damaged. The app also features online price checking, which also allows for easy reordering, reporting and warranty and product expiry tracking.
According to user Browndog01, this app is the best on the market, “This is the best app I've found for inventory and I've tried them all. It has multiple methods of input that work flawlessly, the ability to add a picture at every level and outstanding customer support."
MyStuff
$3.99
iOS
This app looks fairly simple and straightforward. It includes a lot of helpful features, including the ability to sort your items by room and collection and a robust search feature. You can add many helpful details per item, including notes, but you can only attach one photo (it recommends going with a photo of the item or its warranty).
Though MyStuff doesn’t offer the ability to save your inventory in the cloud, you can export PDFs at no extra cost. You can also share with up to six family members, so the whole family can ensure that their belongings are cataloged.
Home Inventory Apps with In-App Purchases
Inventory Manager
Free to download, In-App Purchases
iOS
From reviews, this is a pretty app, but it needs work. Maybe skip it for now or check back to its App Store listing to see if updates have been made.
Sortly
Free to download, In-App Purchases
iOS
Sortly is easy-to-use and allows you to organize your items across five levels of folders, allowing you to break down items by room and collection and more. Attach up to eight photos per item, giving you the ability to capture barcodes, documents and receipts. A searchable notes section is also included. If you’ve worked off of spreadsheets for your inventory in the past, Sortly allows you to import and export CSV files.
The best features are part of Sortly Plus, which will cost you. At $4.99/month or $47.99 per year, it’s not cheap but it does offer some great perks, including syncing across devices, backups in the Cloud, exporting to DropBox, and a barcode scanner for UPC, ISBN and EAN.
Free Home Inventory Apps
Encircle
FREE
iOS
Encircle appears to be the Cadillac of the free home inventory apps. Simple to use, this app allows you to upload unlimited photos and notes about each room and item in your home. With apps for your phone and tablet, as well as a web interface, users can manage their info across devices. The app also allows for easy creation and exports of reports in PDF and Excel form.
Says user EricV71, “This app is great for organizing all the information you would need in the event of an emergency, disaster, or insurance claim. You can get pictures of each room in your house, along with the details of the "big items", documented very quickly. “
Liberty Mutual Home Gallery
FREE
iOS
Though this app gets mixed reviews, it appears to have useful features for creating a home inventory and allows you to add up to three properties. With the ability to add multiple photos per item, scan barcodes and sync to a secure server, this app from trusted carrier Liberty Mutual seems easy-to-use.
DreamVault
FREE
iOS or Android
This one does not get great reviews, but it is by American Family Insurance, a trusted insurance company. The app allows you to upload photos and details about your personal items and sort them by room. There does not appear to be cloud syncing, but you can generate reports and share with family members.
An accurate, up-to-date and comprehensive home inventory is essential for knowing what you have in your home and helpful in choosing homeowners, renters or condo insurance limits as well as through the claims process. It's a useful exercise even if you already have insurance coverage to help you determine whether you're carrying enough or too much. Call one of our insurance advisors today at (844) 824-2887 to update your insurance policy or get quotes for a new renters insurance policy based on your inventory.
Do you have a favorite home inventory app? We’d love to hear about it! Please reach out to us on Twitter at @insuramatch.
Put your inventory to good use and call one of our insurance advisors today at (844) 824-2887 to update your policy today or call us for a free comparison quote using your new limits.
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