Home Inventory Calculator

The recommended figure adds a 10% buffer on top of your itemized total before rounding up to the nearest $5,000, since a hand-estimated inventory tends to undercount actual replacement costs — people routinely forget items, underestimate how much clothing or kitchenware they actually own, and don't account for prices rising between when they estimate and when they'd need to replace something. The buffer exists specifically to reduce the risk of being underinsured relative to your real total exposure.

Most standard homeowners and renters policies apply a special sub-limit specifically to jewelry theft, often well below what your general contents coverage would otherwise imply, because jewelry is small, portable, and disproportionately targeted in burglaries. A scheduled endorsement insures named jewelry items individually at their appraised value, which is why this calculator flags jewelry value above $2,500 as needing that separate coverage rather than relying on the general contents limit.

Actual cash value pays out the depreciated worth of an item — what a five-year-old couch is actually worth used, not what a new one costs today — while replacement cost coverage pays what it actually takes to buy a new equivalent item regardless of how old or worn the original was. The depreciation difference this calculator shows is exactly the gap you'd be exposed to if your policy only covers actual cash value rather than full replacement cost.

No — this calculator produces category-level estimates to help you choose an appropriate coverage limit, but an insurer settling a real claim will generally want an itemized inventory with receipts, photos, or video documentation for specific items, especially higher-value ones. Use this total to check whether your current coverage limit is in the right range, then maintain a more detailed room-by-room record separately for actual claims support.