Valuables Vault

Searching through the NRMA website yesterday I came across their collection of iPhone Apps. One in particular caught my eye called the Valuables Vault and I will tell you why.

Over 12 months ago (and there is a post about it in this blog), I started contacting insurance companies such as the RACV, NRMA and several state based bodies regarding offering their members Carbonite as a way of backing up their Contents Checklist. You see, most of us have no idea what contents we have insured in our home.

If your house was to hypothetically burn down today, would know what to claim? Can you remember what you have in each draw that is of value. What tools you have in the garage. Think about each piece of clothing, each children’s toy, each DVD you own. There would be hundreds if not thousands of items.

The only way to accurately record this is to audit your home and list them all. Some insurance companies eg Suncorp where offering a piece of software that you could use to store this information in. When I spoke to them about it they were keen to phase it out because supporting it was quite difficult. There are also online versions of these tools and some are actually free. They also allow you to record pictures supporting your listing.

The danger with all of these tools is that if they are kept on your PC and your PC burns with the rest of the house they are useless. What you need is an online version of these tools or a backup of the data. That is the only way to ensure that your contents checklist is secure.

NRMA’s iPhone App the Valuables Vault is another of these tools.  However instead of sitting on your PC the information sits on your iPhone. Personally I like the idea, however as with anything with an operating system it can crash or more likely you could lose your iPhone or break it. If the operating systems gets wiped then all of your data is gone.

What you keep on your phone needs to be backed up, particularly if you are going to be using tools such as the Valuables Vault.

I don’t have an iPhone to test this App and when they produce an Android version of it I will play with and let you know what I think of it. As I said I think the need for tools such as this is very important. The failure of the strategy for me is that only a small percentage of Australian’s have an iPhone. So the rest of the population don’t have a ‘special’ solution.

With the growth of mobile operating systems such as Android and WP7, NRMA has some catching up to do, because in no time, Android will over take Apple’s iOS system. WP7 might be some way behind.

If you don’t have an Apple iPhone then what I suggest you do is jump on the computer and open Excel. If you don’t have Excel then open your Word Processor. Create a table and begin listing all of the items you own. You will need to categories them eg clothing, toys, jewellery, electronics, DVDs, CDs, Furniture, Kitchen, Garage. It is a big job but well worth it once it is done.

Once you have it all accounted for, please then back it up. If you aren’t using an online backup service then back it up to an external drive as well as email it to your Gmail or MSN email account. You need to take a copy of this document offsite.

Picks below are from NRMA’s Valuables Vault, which you can access from the App Store.