If you're here, it's probable that you've had a loss. If so, sorry, but know that you’re not alone and there’s lots of help out there – embrace it. This program is and here to help you complete the laborious task of filling out your personal property contents list for insurance purposes, after-the-fact, since many of us don’t have a list before our disaster. It’s not easy, but it’s not going to get done on its own. Start as soon as possible as many insurance companies have time limits on getting your list submitted – typically 1 year – and this is not going to be a quick or easy thing to do.

Background

I lost my home and ‘stuff’ to the Waldo Canyon Fire, in June of 2012. After the shock finally wore off and my family and I re-grounded ourselves into our temporary living space, I knew I had to stop procrastinating on my personal property contents list as my 1 year insurance deadline was quickly approaching – and so was tax season, which provided us an additional deduction and was another reason to stop procrastinating. If you’re reading this, you’re likely in a similar situation. It wasn’t fun for me and I’d like to give back what little I can to help you. It’s still going to take a bit of time and effort on your part, but every little bit helps. This should help make it a little quicker and easier if nothing else. The folks at Community Assisting Recovery, Inc. funded a grant to redesign the initial prototype that I used into a web-based solution with the requirement that it remain free for you to use. There's no catch. It doesn’t cost anything, so the only thing you have to lose is a little time while you try it. Give it a shot – both your way and this way. If this works, great, if not, you have lost nothing but a little time. I sincerely hope this helps.

One of the ways to complete your list

We all had lots of help from many wonderful organizations in response to our disaster. One organization was Community Assisting Recovery, Inc., who had a great start on a spreadsheet to help remember all the little things we had in our home (they have lots of other good information as well – you can get the same original default list there). I took that large list and started the daunting task of filling it in. I started with item 1, went to Google Shopping and other shopping sites, entered the item into the search, found my item, copied/pasted the details (age, qty, cost, description, etc) into the spreadsheet and then went the next item; repeat, repeat, repeat, etc. That of course is one of the ways to complete the list, but requires a lot of typing, copying, and pasting.

How this program works

Being a software developer by day, I knew there had to be a simpler and quicker way. It was initially so painful and time-consuming; I thought how can anyone in our situation have the time to do this – we have so many more things to worry about. So I started building this program to help me and my family get this necessary task done a little quicker. This program does exactly what I just explained above: starts with item 1 (or wherever you want), fetches results from various shopping sites, displays the results based off the product in question (in a program that is tied to the spreadsheet), you select/click the item from the list and it does the copy/paste part for you, into the spreadsheet (cost, description, etc); repeat, repeat, repeat, etc. So it's as simple as selecting/clicking the item, typing the age and quantity, and going to the next item, which will help speed things up a little bit and every little bit helps!