What your insurer will ask for after the gear is stolen (and the list to have ready)
The trailer with the sound rig went over the weekend and the broker wants a schedule by Wednesday. What a claim actually needs, and how to build it in an afternoon before you need it.
In this article
- What the claim actually needs
- Build it in an afternoon
- Keeping it true
- Before the claim: what reduces the loss
- Where Itefy fits
The trailer with the sound rig was taken over the weekend. By Monday afternoon you have spoken to the police and the broker, and the broker has asked for a schedule: what was in it, when you bought each item, what it is worth, and any serial numbers.
You know roughly what was in the trailer. You do not have the serial numbers, and the receipts are in an email account, a filing box, and the memory of somebody who left in 2023.
This happens to churches, theatres, schools, scout groups, small production companies and bands, and it is not rare. The claim then turns almost entirely on a list that either exists or does not.
What the claim actually needs
Per item, in rough order of how much difference it makes:
Serial number. The single most valuable field. It proves this specific item was yours, it goes on the police report, and it is what makes a recovered item traceable back to you. For anything without one — cables, stands, cases — you fall back on photographs.
Photographs. One of the item, one of the serial plate, and ideally one of it in use. A picture of the rack as it normally stands is worth a great deal: it establishes what was there in a way an itemised list on its own does not.
Purchase date and price, with whatever evidence exists — receipt, invoice, card statement line, or the supplier's own record. Attach it to the item rather than filing it by month; the point is being able to produce it per item, fast.
Replacement value, on the basis your policy uses. Worth reviewing annually: gear bought five years ago at £900 may cost £1,400 to replace today, and a schedule carrying the old figure quietly under-insures you.
Where it normally lives, which matters more than people expect — insurers ask where items are kept, and cover can differ between premises, a vehicle and off-site use.
Ownership and condition history. Anything showing the item was in service and looked after: service records, a maintenance log, previous repairs.
Build it in an afternoon
This is genuinely a half-day job for a couple of hundred items, and it is far easier before an incident than after one.
- Walk the building with a phone. Everything above about £50–100.
- For each item: two photographs — the item, and its serial plate — plus a note of make, model and where it lives.
- Get the serial numbers into text, not just into pictures. A photograph of a serial plate is fine as evidence but useless for searching, and you will want to search.
- Attach purchase evidence where you have it. Do not stall on the ones you do not; an incomplete list beats no list by an enormous margin.
- Store it somewhere that is not in the building. A list that burns with the premises, or is on the laptop that was stolen alongside the gear, is not a list. Cloud storage, or at minimum a copy held elsewhere.
That last point is the one people get wrong most often.
Keeping it true
An asset list for insurance is only as good as its last update, and the failure mode is not that people abandon it — it is that new purchases never get added. The kit bought most recently is the most expensive to replace and the least likely to be on the schedule.
Two habits:
- Add it when it arrives. Photograph and record new equipment on the day it is unboxed. It takes two minutes and it never happens later.
- Review values annually, at renewal, when you are thinking about the policy anyway.
Before the claim: what reduces the loss
Not the subject of this article, but worth stating because the same list supports it:
- Mark your gear visibly with the organisation's name. It makes resale harder and recovery possible.
- Tell your broker what you actually do — gear that travels, gear left in a vehicle overnight, gear used off premises. Cover often differs, and a mismatch is discovered at exactly the wrong moment.
- Photograph the space as it normally is, not just the items.
Where Itefy fits
This list is a register with a few extra fields, which means keeping it is not a separate job from keeping track of your equipment.
In Itefy every item holds its serial number, purchase date and price, current value, home location and condition, with photographs and documents attached to the item itself — the receipt lives on the record rather than in an email account. Because the same register is what people use to check gear in and out, it stays current as a side effect of ordinary work rather than through an annual campaign.
When you need the schedule, the register exports, filtered to a location if the loss was one room or one vehicle. Each item's history shows it was yours and in service, which is the ownership evidence the second half of a claim turns on.
And it is off-site by definition — which is the point of item 5 above, and the reason a spreadsheet on the office PC is a poor place for this particular list.
14-day free trial, no card. An afternoon walking the building with a phone is enough to know whether it fits.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Not always, but they settle disputes fastest. Where a receipt is gone, a bank or card statement line, the supplier's records, or a dated photograph of the item in use are all evidence. The claim is a balance of probabilities, not a court case.
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Serial numbers, for anything that has one, because they prove the specific item and can be circulated to trade buyers and police. Photographs matter most for the things without serials, and for showing condition.
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That is a conversation with your broker, and the answer differs by policy. What matters here is that whichever basis you are on, your list should carry the figure your policy actually uses — otherwise the schedule you hand over does not match the cover you bought.