What to Do After a House Fire: Your Contents Claim Guide

The short version: Safety comes first. Once officials say you can go back, photograph the damage before cleanup, and call your insurer about emergency living expenses and an advance on your belongings. Keep damaged items until the insurer has had a chance to inspect them, and coordinate any work needed to prevent further damage. Then rebuild the list of what you owned one room at a time, using old photos, purchase records, and the memories of people who knew the house. You don't have to remember everything at once, and the amount the insurer takes off for age and wear (depreciation) can be questioned.

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The first 72 hours after a house fire#

This guide is for U.S. homeowners and renters claiming personal belongings damaged or destroyed in a fire, such as furniture, clothing, electronics, and household goods. (Built-in parts of the house, like cabinets and fixtures, usually fall under the building side of the policy instead.) This part of the claim depends on what you can remember and what you can show.

1. Stay out until it's safe. Ready.gov's home fire guidance says to check with the fire department before going back inside and not to reconnect utilities yourself. A relief organization like the Red Cross can help with temporary housing, food, or medicine.
2. Ask about the fire report. Ask your insurer whether it needs the fire department's incident report, and request a copy if so.
3. Call your insurer the same day if you can. Ask for a complete copy of your policy and an advance on additional living expenses (ALE, sometimes called loss of use). That's the coverage that pays for the extra costs of living somewhere else while your home can't be lived in. Ask the insurer to confirm your dollar limit, any time limit, and what paperwork it needs.
4. Ask for a contents advance too, in writing. United Policyholders, a nonprofit that helps disaster survivors with their claims, says in its first-steps checklist to ask right away for a cash advance on ALE and on replacing your belongings, and to put every request in writing.
5. Keep receipts for what you spend from here on. Hotel stays, meals, and other temporary living costs, plus anything you buy to replace what was lost. You don't need the original receipts for things you owned before the fire, but replacement receipts can matter later (see the payout section below).

Don't throw anything out yet#

The instinct after a fire is to start hauling things to the curb. Keep damaged belongings until your insurer has had a chance to inspect them and confirms they can go. The Insurance Information Institute's advice fits in one sentence: "Don't throw out damaged items until the adjuster has visited." A scorched camera body or a warped guitar case is still evidence. It proves the item existed, and it usually shows the brand. That's different from emergency work like covering a broken window or a hole in the roof, which your policy likely expects you to do to prevent further damage. Contact your insurer about it as soon as you can. If the work can't safely wait, photograph the damage where possible, use qualified professionals when needed, keep the receipts, and tell your insurer promptly.

Once officials say it's safe, photograph every room as it stands, before anything is cleaned or moved. United Policyholders says the same: "Take photos of your property before any cleanup or debris removal." Shoot wide from the doorway, then each wall, then closets and shelves, then close-ups of anything with a label, a serial number plate, or a recognizable shape. Take far more photos than feels reasonable, because once the debris is in a dumpster, there's no going back. Even after a total loss, photos taken from a safe, permitted spot can help you picture the room when you rebuild the list.

How do I make a list of everything I lost in a fire?#

This is the part people dread. In an r/homeowners thread about home inventories, one commenter whose friends lost their home to a fire reported that the insurer wanted "a list of EVERY item, right down to every book on the shelf, every pillowcase and towel. It took them months to get it together." A wildfire survivor in the same thread said nobody can remember every piece of clothing, but it all adds up to thousands of dollars.

Insurers don't all ask for that level of detail, so ask before you start. United Policyholders' tips for settling the contents portion of a claim suggest requesting a waiver or relaxation of the requirement to itemize every single item. Ask whether your insurer accepts grouped entries (like "12 bath towels") or will pay part of the contents claim without a full itemized list. Some states have extra rules after declared disasters, so it's worth asking about those too.

For whatever you do need to list, don't try to remember everything at once. Give your memory something to hold onto. United Policyholders' contents-claim guidance suggests "sitting down and recalling room by room," and that's the whole method: walk through the house in your mind, one room at a time, write down what you see, then go looking for proof.

The room-by-room reconstruction#

In each room, start with the biggest and most expensive things, the ones you're sure about. Let them lead you to the smaller things that sat next to them.

Three sources fill in the rest. Use all of them.

Photos you already have. If cloud backup or syncing was turned on, your photo library may still be in iCloud Photos or Google Photos even if the phone burned. Your belongings show up in the background of photos you took for other reasons: the TV behind a birthday party, the bookshelf behind a video-call screenshot, the watch on your wrist at a dinner. Each photo records the date it was taken, so it shows you owned that item by then, which helps prove both that it was yours and how old it was. United Policyholders adds that friends and family "may have photos taken inside your home that will help jog your memory and serve as proof to your insurer," so ask everyone who visited.

Purchase records. Most stores keep order histories for years, and card issuers can pull old statements. United Policyholders notes that "credit card companies and retailers can help you reconstruct purchases and identify replacement costs." Manufacturer accounts can hold serial numbers: your Apple Account shows the devices currently signed in to it, and camera, watch, and instrument makers keep warranty registrations.

Other people's memories. Your descriptions of what you lost, "along with descriptions given by witnesses, family members, neighbors and friends should suffice," in United Policyholders' words. The partner who bought the jacket, the friend who borrowed the lens, the sibling who was there when the guitar came home: they're all witnesses. A short signed statement from them may help support your claim, so ask your insurer what it needs.

What a good entry looks like#

For every line, aim for what it was (brand and model), how many, roughly when you got it, what shape it was in before the fire, and what it would cost to replace today. Here are three example entries (the prices are illustrative):

Our guide to proving ownership without receipts ranks each kind of proof by strength and tells you where to find it. Write down the items you're unsure about too. "Sony over-ear headphones, bought around 2022" can be priced. A memory you never wrote down can't.

Don't let anyone rush you. United Policyholders is direct about it: "Don't let insurance company adjusters rush you into a quick settlement." But do find out your deadlines. Ask your insurer, in writing, when the inventory and the proof of loss (the sworn statement of what you're claiming) are due, how long you have to replace items, and whether you can add to the list after you first submit it. If you need more time, request an extension in writing before the deadline passes.

How the contents payout works#

The type of coverage you have on your personal property decides how your list turns into money. Check that part of the policy specifically; replacement cost coverage on the house itself doesn't mean your belongings have it too. Replacement cost pays what it costs to buy a comparable item today. Actual cash value, in the Insurance Information Institute's words, pays "the amount needed to replace the item minus depreciation," so a four-year-old camera pays out as a four-year-old camera. Either way, the payment is subject to your deductible, your policy limits, and the policy's other conditions.

Replacement cost has a catch. Many insurers pay it in two steps: the depreciated value first, then the rest (called recoverable depreciation) after you actually replace the item and send in the receipt. The second payment depends on your policy and on what you actually spend; replacing an item for less than the estimate can reduce it. If you never replace it, you may keep only the first payment, so hold on to replacement receipts and check your policy for a deadline.

There's no single nationwide depreciation schedule that every insurer uses, and depreciation should reflect an item's condition and wear, not just its age. Ask your insurer how it calculated each deduction, ask for a copy of the schedule it used, and challenge anything that doesn't match the item's real condition. Your description matters here too. A vague entry like "camera" can lead to an inaccurate replacement price, so include the brand, model, important features, approximate age, and condition. How to challenge depreciation line by line is covered in Home Inventory for Insurance: The Complete Guide.

When to bring in help#

Your insurer's adjuster costs you nothing, but works for the insurer. A public adjuster works for you, for a fee. The Insurance Information Institute cautions that the fee can run "as much as 15 percent of the total value of your settlement," though fees and legal limits vary by state and by contract. A public adjuster can be worth it when the claim is large or already in dispute. For a smaller claim, weigh the fee against the help you need and the amount in dispute. Ask to see their state license, call two references, and get the fee in writing.

After a regional disaster, public adjusters can get booked up. In a July 2025 r/Insurance post about a Missouri tornado claim, the policyholder reported that she couldn't afford a lawyer and that public adjusters were backlogged, leaving her to negotiate what she described as an underpriced contents list on her own. United Policyholders exists for exactly that situation. Its guidance is free and written by people who have been through it.

If you're the friend or relative helping someone through this, the most useful things you can do are practical: dig through your own photos for pictures taken in their home, look up current prices for the things they lost, and sit with them while they work through the list room by room.

When you're ready to start a list for your own home, a spreadsheet or an inventory app can help. The NAIC's free Home Inventory app, Sortly, and Val App all do the job.

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Frequently asked questions#

Can I file a house fire contents claim without a home inventory?#

Yes. You can reconstruct an inventory after the fire from your memory, photos, purchase records, and statements from people who knew the house. Ask your insurer whether it accepts grouped entries or will relax the itemization requirement. It takes longer than working from an existing inventory, and it's easier to underclaim, so take your time.

What if I can't remember everything I lost in the fire?#

Nobody can. Start with the large items in each room and let them remind you of the smaller ones, then use photos and order histories to fill the gaps. Submit what you have by the deadline, ask in writing whether you can add to the list later, and keep adding as things come back to you.

What counts as additional living expenses after a fire?#

Additional living expenses coverage pays reasonable increases in your living costs when a covered loss makes your home unlivable: a hotel or rental, restaurant meals above what you'd normally spend on food, laundry, extra mileage. Replacing your lost clothes and belongings falls under the contents part of the claim instead. Ask your insurer to confirm your dollar limit, time limit, and what receipts it needs, and keep every receipt from the first night.

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This article draws on Ready.gov's home fire guidance, United Policyholders' first-steps checklist, contents-claim guidance, and contents settlement tips, guidance from the Insurance Information Institute, and firsthand accounts shared in online communities including r/homeowners and r/Insurance. Policy terms and state rules vary. Val App is a home inventory product built by Wishabit, LLC. We build this software and also write about the category honestly, including recommending competitor products and free resources where they serve readers well.