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1990-02-16
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A P P E N D I X A
INTRODUCTION
Home Insurance is software that allows you to keep track
of what you own, where items are located and how much it
would cost to replace something that is lost. Unfortunately,
most of us do not find out how much property insurance we
need until after we suffer a major loss. We then may
learn that our insurance coverage, although based on
replacement value, is not sufficient to cover the complete
loss. Or, worse yet, we are unable to document the true
value of our possessions and thus the insurance will only pay
to replace our lost possessions with lower quality items.
Home Insurance provides protection in several ways.
First, it provides a way for you to determine whether or not
you have adequate property insurance. For example, insurance
policies generally limit the coverage for some special items
such as jewelry, collectibles (coins, stamps, plates, dolls,
ect.), guns and furs. By categorizing items by type, Home
Insurance can give you the total replacement value for each
type of item you own. This allows you to compare what you
actually have versus the limits given in your insurance
policy.
For those special items that need to be covered for more
than a minimal amount, you generally will need to "schedule"
them. What this means is that you give your insurance agent
a list (or schedule) of the special items to be insured so
that those items are specifically identified and the
appropriate insurance supplied. Some of them may
already be covered by your existing insurance. For others
you may need to consider additional insurance. Your
insurance agent will know the details of your policy, so once
your inventory is complete, discuss it with your agent to
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determine if you need to schedule any items. Policies vary
and it will take someone familiar with your policy, such as
your agent, to provide you with specific recommendations. Of
course, Home Insurance can provide the list your agent will
need.
If you should suffer a loss, from theft, fire, vandalism
- any type of loss, Home Insurance is your record of what you
had. It will allow you to put together a list of what was
lost, providing you with model numbers, serial numbers and
descriptions. If the loss was due to theft, this provides
the police with the information they'll need to identify and
hopefully recover your things. It also provides the
insurance company with the documentation they need to replace
the lost items with items of the same or similar quality.
Insurance companies generally try to protect themselves
from people out to take advantage of them. Thus, if you
have not documented the description, model number and
serial number of the items you lost, you may not be able to
recover the full replacement value. You should keep the
receipts for every major purchase you make. This is the best
documentation. But, what if your shoe boxes of receipts also
go up in a fire? With your complete inventory on one
floppy disk you can easily keep a copy at home and another at
work or in a safe deposit box, so your records will be safe.
Using Home Insurance
Depending on the size of your home and how much you've
packed into each closet, you can expect to spend several
hours entering the list of everything you own into your
inventory for the first time. I suggest setting aside one
day to do a complete inventory. Start in one room and list
the complete contents of that room (a clip board with a pad
of paper will be helpful for this). Go from room to room
until everything is listed. If you take a break, or have
other people in your house (i.e. your kids), be careful not
to move items from room to room as this can cause some
confusion.
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If you haven't had an appraisal done recently, you might
use your Sears, Penney's or other catalog to determine the
current replacement value for some items. For others you may
need to do a little window shopping to get a good idea of
what it would cost to replace them. If you want to be
accurate, don't guess. If you guess high, you will be paying
for more insurance than you need. A low guess will result in
inadequate coverage. Valuable items should be appraised by a
professional appraiser to get a realistic estimate of their
value. Talk with your insurance agent to get his
recommendation concerning what items you should get
appraised.
Home Insurance provides level levels of detail. This
three level feature allows you to determine the amount of
information you want to store for each item. If you have
valuable things, or need more complete descriptions for
insurance use, you can keep information to a level of very
fine detail. On the other hand, if you just need a quick way
to find specific stuff (a technical word meaning anything you
own) you may use the first, less detailed, level of Home
Insurance. Since you can set up as many separate catalog
files as you wish, you can divide your inventory and
categorize each part of it in as much or little detail as you
want.
Home Insurance is completely menu driven and easy to
operate. Since the computer does all the hard work for you,
this manual is short. We'll describe how to enter
information; what to do to edit existing entries; and how to
find the item(s) you need.
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THE THREE LEVELS OF HOME INSURANCE
The three levels of Home Insurance are: Insurance, Detail and
Complete. Each level provides progressively a greater detail
of information that can be stored for each item.
The following is a list of the information that can be
entered at each level. As the higher levels are used,
however, the data files use more disk space. Using the
Insurance level allows you to have twice as many entries on a
floppy disk as you can get at the Detail level.
Insurance Detail Complete
Description Description Description
Model # Model # Model #
ID Marks ID Marks ID Marks
Serial Number Serial Number Serial Number
Note Note Note
Value Value Value
Owner(s) Owner(s)
Location Location
Other Other
Type Type
Purchase Date Purchase Date
Updated Updated
Note -1 Note -1
Note -2 Note -2
Note -3 Note -3
Purchased From
Address
City/State
Original Cost
Note
Miscellaneous
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Home Insurance allows you to keep inventories for several
insurance policies on one one disk or you can keep each on a
separate disk. Since you can specify virtually an unlimited
number of locations and owners, each item can be pinpointed
as to who owns it and where it is located. Thus you can
include items that are in your office or at a summer home.
Home Insurance can sort them out and provide a print-out for
each location and owner.
Let's look at the type of information that can be entered
on each line:
Description - You this line is used to enter and
descriptive phrase that applies to this object. Depending on
what the item is you could include information such as the
brand name, color, the material it is made from, the style,
or shape. NOTE: You can also use the "NOTE" line at the
Detail level for additional descriptive information. Be
consistent in the type of information you enter, however. If
you use the NOTE -1 line to describe the color of an item,
always usethe NOTE -1 line for colors and nothing else.
When making entries you should be consistent when using
upper and lower case letters. During searches the software
will differentiate between upper and lower case letters.