Do You Need Photographs of Your Home for the Insurance Company?
When obtaining insurance, or even a loan, you may need pictures of your home. Here are some examples and tips.
I have been hired by banks and insurance companies to take photographs of homes for their records. This is often called a Disaster Area Inspection report, since these inspections take place after a natural disaster. The form is simple. I take a few pictures, and I write up what I find on the exterior. I was asked to come out to a home to take pictures of the home for the owner, who was sending them to her insurance. She did not need to hire me, but she was not sure what needed to be done. Hence this post. You may find that the insurance company just wants you to take some pictures for their files, so here is what they usually want.
Below you will see the examples of one house. They want a straight on photo of the front. Then they want the sides. Since many homes are too close together, I prefer to take the shot from the front looking at the side, and then from the rear looking at the side. I like to have a close up of the front that shows the roof covering if I can. Then I take a few pictures of the back from different angles. The insurer wants to see that there is no major damage to the exterior walls. They also want to see that the roof covering is in decent shape. Your goal is to give them a sense of what is happening with your house. My average for these jobs is seven to nine pictures. I place the photographs on a text document, sizing them to fit about six per page. The header states that this is photographs of this house address, and it may be wise to include the date. I create a pdf for this document. Any one can have a problem opening your text file, but most people have no issue with a pdf.
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