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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

Insurance companies hate this one trick.

Seriously, if she ever has a house fire, she will have an easier time than most reporting what she lost.

Only 15 hours a week for easier insurance claims!

Hehe. That said this does make me wonder if I shouldn’t just record a few long 4K 60fps video walking through our apartment opening cupboards and drawers and quickly scanning everything as a low effort catalog

That's what I do. Relatively quick and easy, only need to parse if something actually happens. Just make sure the video is backed-up off-site.

You get that working at a high enough accuracy and you will have an cashierless checkout company at hand.

you could save yourself a ton storage space by using the timelapse mode on your phone's camera app. just set it to the shortest interval, which is usually 1 second

I would rather save the time of doing that cataloguing and cost of higher insurance premiums (due to lower deductible) and just start over.

New clothes purchased for a couple thousand max, new computer/phone for a few thousand and restored from backup, and photos can be printed again anytime. I could probably be up and running in a couple days.

> due to lower deductible

I'm confused. Why does cataloging your household items have anything to do with the deductible on your insurance policy?

I'm definitely not concerned with cataloging my t-shirts and underwear, but I do have some high ticket items that I've parked money in that I would like back in the event of a disaster, so I do have a good catalog of anything I think is important.

If you have a high deductible, then insurance is not going to reimburse you for losses anyway, so what is the point of cataloguing it for insurance?

I can live without a TV/speakers/other Knick knacks in case I fall on hard times. I just need enough cash/insurance to be able to buy a phone/laptop/car/clothes/shelter/food.

So you set the deductible to $25k and just roll with the risk of losing a few unnecessary possessions that you might have to repurchase.

At least in the US typical deductibles are typically in the $500-$2000k range for structure and contents. Where on earth are you getting $25k from?

My current insurance is Amica, but I have gotten quotes for it before. You have to ask them, it is usually not on a standard selection form.

Edit: I logged into Amica, and I can select it via drop down.

Said like someone who's never lost everything or dealt with an insurance company. You don't spend the time to catalog every little item in the pictures until you need to submit a claim, at which point you'll be glad you can add every single tiny item to the list before they pay out the depreciated value of your belongings. If all you list is your furniture and big ticket items, I guarantee you're getting screwed over. Most people have no idea how long (and how much money) it takes to recover from a total loss.

Source: I worked for a restoration company in the US for several years and have submitted hundreds of claims on behalf of homeowners/renters

Between all of my appliances and furniture and clothes and electronics, I do not think they would total to my $25k deductible. I buy and use cheap stuff from IKEA or Costco or Uniqlo or Next or Apple.

What I’m saying is, I would just take the hit and move on and spend a few thousand on buying replacement items.

Obviously this depends on one’s preferred lifestyle. If you have a Design Within Reach home where each piece of furniture is thousands of dollars, then cataloguing is worth it.

Why even bother with insurance with minimal possessions and a deductible that high? Genuinely curious.

If this is intended to cover property damage to the structure then I hope you have that $25k available - you're not going to get a crew in to fix/clean anything without paying that deductible (or estimated cost of repairs/cleanup) up front. My crews wouldn't have set foot in a house without authorization from the adjuster or cash in hand.

The insurance is to satisfy the lender's requirement for lending me money to buy the house.

But if I did not have a redundant house or enough money to pay for a new home, I would also want the insurance to rebuild or repair a house. It is possible to have enough cash to replace your needed belongings, but not enough cash to rebuild the house after a fire.

I am fortunate to have more than $25k available for immediate concerns. But I often find people who have more than sufficient cash such that they have already insured themself to buy additional low deductible insurance. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but in the age of low cost broad market index funds, I say why not cut out the middleman.

I'm a little surprised that a policy with a deductible that high meets their requirements. Out of the many, many claims I've submitted the highest I've ever seen was $5k. Insurance is cheap enough that I question the value you're saving here but hey, you do you.

My entirely unsolicited advice is that you should be aware how quick you're going to need to cough up that deductible to get anything done in case you do need to make a claim. Nobody's gonna let you put that on credit the way they would with a typical deductible. They will want cash in hand.

I would submit the actuaries pricing the insurance know the most about how cheap the insurance is relative to the risk. If it is only a few dollars per year, then the probability of loss must be so small that the insurance company is willing to take on the risk for a few dollars per year. Now, if you do not have $25k cash, then certainly go ahead and buy the insurance because you need it. But if you do, then you have already insured yourself.

exactly, I've dreamed about cataloguing a bunch of low res images of all my belongings just or inventory sake. So much junk to manage.

> So much junk to manage.

"The things you own, end up owning you" - Tyler Durdan

He wasn't meant to be a role model.

Funny that it happened anyways.

He had to be charming and his message appealing for the film to work. The next step—that Tyler and his lifestyle and obsessions also "owned" the narrator and needed to be discarded—may or may not have been lost on some people, but even those who did "get" the movie can still appreciate the Thoreau-esque manic-pixie-dream-bro appeal of Tyler in the early acts of the film.

That aside, I would consider that a pretty true statement.

Why's this being downvoted, it's totally true. When the object counts of possessions exceed a certain amount you just naturally lose stuff and the objects own your attention and frustrations. Anyone familiar with this crazy documentary? This is worth sharing https://www.uctv.tv/clutter/

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