Home Improvement & Interior Design Guide

Even if you don’t need an appraisal, insurers recommend that a complete record of your house’s contents be kept. Periodic inventories should include sales receipts or estimates of the current cost of a comparable item. Photos or videos of the contents and their location should be included. The list and photos should be kept off the premises-in a safe-deposit box at the bank.

A growing number are now doing on-site appraisals, using these “loss evaluations” to determine actual replacement value as well as make recommendations to the homeowners about security or fire protection.

To replace the post, coverage would even have to pay for making the hand tools used to make it. But the client would be given the option of having an exact replica or a more modern replacement made. The same is true with replacing plaster walls with drywall. To find costs of older materials, appraisers visit sites like salvage yards.

After you’ve completed a major renovation may be a good time to consider shopping around for competitive rates, says the Insurance Information Institute of New York, which represents the country’s major insurers. If you’ve kept your coverage with a company for several years, you may receive a special discount for being a long-term policyholder.

So you’ve spent thousands of dollars turning your house into the one you’ve longed for. Before you relax and begin enjoying what all that money has bought, you’ll first need to think about whether your investment is adequately protected.

For instance, the Portland Cement Association has developed a blue-ribbon warranty program for driveways-certainly one element of the home that undergoes more wear and tear than a lot of others. If a contractor has completed the training program and follows product specs to the letter, the driveway is guaranteed from defects for the first five years.

Warranties aren’t based on average life expectancies, however, so if the April 1996 issue of Appliance Statistical Review says that your dishwasher should last ten years and it dies after nine, don’t expect to get a new one for free.