When your home's contents are damaged or stolen, the claim comes down to a list — and how each item on that list gets valued. Two terms decide most of it: replacement cost value and actual cash value. Policies differ, so treat this as practical bookkeeping guidance rather than insurance advice, and check your own policy's wording as you go.
Every contents policy measures your belongings with one of two yardsticks. Replacement cost value (RCV) is what it would cost to buy a comparable item new today — not what you paid for it, and not what the old one would fetch secondhand. Actual cash value (ACV) starts from that same replacement price and subtracts depreciation for age and wear. Many homeowners and renters policies cover contents at replacement cost, some cover them at actual cash value, and some mix the two by category. Your policy's declarations page says which you have, and it's worth checking before you build your inventory so you know what the numbers will mean.
Depreciation in a claim isn't a judgment about your things — it's a formula. Adjusters commonly work from an item's category, its age, and its expected useful life, then reduce the replacement price accordingly. Different categories age at different speeds: electronics commonly depreciate faster than solid wood furniture, and some categories barely depreciate at all under some policies. The practical takeaway is that two numbers drive the math on every line: what a comparable item costs new today, and how old yours was. If you record those two things for each item, you've captured almost everything the valuation turns on.
Here's the part that surprises most first-timers. Under many replacement-cost policies, you don't receive the full replacement value in one payment. The insurer commonly pays the actual cash value first and holds back the depreciation — called recoverable depreciation — until you actually replace the item and submit the receipt. A second payment then covers the difference, commonly up to what you actually spent. Policies commonly set a time limit for claiming that second payment, so check yours, keep receipts for everything you replace, and match each receipt to a line on your inventory. If you never replace an item, you generally keep only the first payment for it.
It's tempting to write something optimistic in the age column, but resist it. Adjusters can often estimate age from model numbers, photos, and purchase patterns, and a list that reads much newer than the home it came from invites closer scrutiny of every line. An honest age column does the opposite: it makes the whole claim easier to accept as written, and it keeps the file clean for the recoverable-depreciation payment later. Deliberately misstating facts on a claim can also put the claim itself at risk under many policies. You don't need precision — a good-faith estimate, noted as an estimate, is normal. What matters is that you're not quietly shading everything newer.
The more common mistake runs the other way. People skip the junk drawer, round the sofa down, and feel greedy listing every towel and phone charger — so whole categories of real loss never make it onto the list. A contents claim isn't a negotiation where humility earns goodwill; it's a tally of what you actually lost under a contract you paid premiums for. Every real item you leave off is simply money you don't receive, and small items add up across a whole household. Walk each room in memory, open the closets and drawers as you go, and claim what was actually there at what it actually costs to replace. That isn't gaming anything — it's the policy working as designed.
ClaimList is a room-by-room inventory builder made for exactly this. You tap through a catalog of common household items, and every line has a field for the item's age and an editable replacement-price estimate — the two numbers the whole valuation turns on. Building and previewing your full list is free, and it runs privately in your browser; you only pay if you want the adjuster-ready spreadsheet export at the end. Either way, start the list while your memory of each room is fresh — that's the one part no tool can do for you.
Under many replacement-cost policies, no — you receive the actual cash value up front, and the held-back depreciation is paid only after you replace the item and submit receipts, commonly within a time limit set by the policy. If you choose not to replace something, you generally keep just the first payment. Check your policy for how yours handles it.
A good-faith estimate is fine — tie it to a memory you trust, like a move or a birthday, and note that it's approximate. An honest rough age is far better for your claim than guessing everything newer than it was.
No. Actual cash value commonly starts from what a comparable item costs new today and subtracts depreciation for age and condition — so it can come out higher or lower than your original purchase price.
ClaimList replaces the empty spreadsheet with a room-by-room catalog of 1,300+ household items with editable typical prices. Free to build and preview everything; $12 once to export the adjuster-ready spreadsheet. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing uploaded.
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