Building or content item?
After wind damage has left you with an insurance catastrophe claim, you will be responsible for listing damage to your contents. The first step if to figure out what the insurance adjuster will consider a content item during your hurricane insurance inspection.
Personal property is items that are not fixtures (or attached) to the home. You have three types of coverage under the standard homeowner’s insurance policy. Building items coverage, contents (personal property) coverage, and additional living expense. Each of these items has different limits, and is viewed separately by the insurance carrier after a catastrophe.
Is it a Building items or Personal Property?
Insurance adjusters have computer programs with pricing on roof shingles, drywall, siding etc. The adjuster will look to the homeowner for pricing on personal property. The easiest way to figure this out if it is content or a building item is to ask the question, “If I moved would I take this?” Personal property is items that are not a fixture of the home, things you WOULD take with you if you moved. You would not claim your roof shingle damage or siding damage as personal property, as it is a building item.
Things like your clothes, beds and patio furniture you would take with you and are contents items. There are other items that require a little more thought. Window blinds, or custom fitted curtain ballast would be attached to the real estate and made custom for that home, those items would be considered building property. In the example of tap tops curtains on a rod, the curtains would be personal property and the rod would be a building item. Gets confusing right. There are also items that are not so black and white but gray. Like your refrigerator. If it is built in it would be a building item, a regular refrigerator would normally be considered a contents item, but could be a building item if it was part of a set that had a build in double oven for example.
The reason I tell you this is that the homeowner will be responsible for making a list of the damaged contents items. You want to make a complete list, including everything you believe is a contents item, but not want to include things like roof tarp, temporary repairs, house paint and drywall which the insurance adjuster take care of.