A 3D Home Inventory for Insurance Claims: Record It Before Anything Happens
Most people photograph their home only after the damage. A ten-minute phone walkthrough recorded now becomes a 3D home inventory for insurance claims: a dated, walkable record of contents and condition that settles the question of what it looked like before.
A home inventory for insurance claims is a record of what you own and the state it was in, made before anything goes wrong. Most people make one after the fact, photographing a flooded hallway and trying to remember what used to be in it. A ten-minute phone walkthrough recorded today does the job better.
Turned into a 3D scene, that walkthrough becomes a dated, walkable copy of the house. An adjuster or a deposit adjudicator can walk it from a desk and answer the question that drags claims out: was it like that before?
What is a 3D home inventory for insurance claims?
It is a phone video of every room, reconstructed into a 3D scene you can walk through in a browser. Instead of a folder of stills, the record is the space itself: contents where they stood, ceilings and floors in their pre-loss condition, and the original video kept alongside as the readable source.
The mechanism is Gaussian splatting. The camera position of each video frame is solved, and the room is rebuilt as millions of small coloured points that read as continuous surfaces. Captures Studio takes ordinary MP4 or MOV footage from a phone and returns a scene in 10 to 120 minutes, with no app on the viewer's side. The video to 3D page covers the conversion.
Why photos taken after the damage are not enough
A claim turns on two things you can no longer show after a loss: what was there, and what condition it was in. The Texas Department of Insurance notes that most companies want a record of lost or damaged items before they pay a personal property claim, and warns that not having one could delay payment (TDI, updated 2023).
Few people have that record ready. In the 2023 Triple-I/Munich Re Consumer Survey, 47 percent of homeowners said they had prepared an inventory of their possessions. The rest build their home inventory for insurance claims from memory, after the loss, when it is hardest to do.
Condition is the harder half. A photo of a stained ceiling after a leak says nothing about whether the stain was already there. Good pre-loss documentation answers that without an argument, because the before is on file with a date attached.
| Record | What it proves | Where it falls short |
|---|---|---|
| 3D walkthrough | Contents, their position, and the condition of walls, ceilings and floors in context | Fine print and small labels stay soft; keep the source video and close stills |
| Video only | Contents and rough condition | One fixed path; you cannot step back and look at a corner the camera passed quickly |
| Photo set | Sharp detail on what was framed | Nothing outside the frame, and no sense of where items sat |
| Written list | Purchase details, prices, serial numbers | No proof of condition at all |
The strongest record is both: the walkthrough for the space, the list for the paperwork.
How do you record a home room by room?
One continuous clip per room works. The interactive capture tutorial shows the passes in 3D; the short version is below.
Before you press record
Open curtains and switch on every light. Keep pets and people out of the room you are filming. Nothing should move once recording starts, because a changing scene shows up as smears in the reconstruction.
The loop
Walk the edge of the room at chest height, phone pointed inward, at a slow walking pace. Do a second loop with the phone raised and tilted down, then a third held low and tilted up. Three loops cover the room from enough angles to rebuild it.
What to linger on
After the loops, stop at what would hurt to lose or argue over:
- Serial and rating plates on the washing machine, fridge, boiler and television. Hold the phone close and still for a few seconds.
- Valuables: jewellery laid out on a bed, watches, cameras, instruments, artwork front and back.
- Ceilings, especially under bathrooms and around light fittings, where leaks show first.
- Floors, including the corners behind furniture, any existing scratches, and the threshold strips between rooms.
- Inside cupboards and wardrobes, doors open, one slow pan each.
The Connecticut Insurance Department told consumers in 2024 to note model and serial numbers. A 3D scene will not make a serial plate legible on its own; the frames you held still on it will.
Narrate as you film: what an item is, roughly when you bought it, what it cost. The audio stays in the source video, and it beats typing a list.
Keeping it private
The scene is also a map of everything worth stealing in your house, so treat it that way. A new project in Captures Studio starts private, which keeps it off the public community page and out of the sitemap. When an adjuster or broker needs it, send the link to that one person.
Keep a second copy of the source video somewhere other than the house. The Texas Department of Insurance suggests a family member, cloud storage or email. A fire that takes the house should not take the phone and the only copy with it.
Re-capturing every year
Any inventory goes stale. You buy a sofa, replace a boiler, repaint the hall. Connecticut advises a review annually and after any significant purchase; a yearly walkthrough covers it.
Name each capture with the date it was recorded, such as 2026-10 house, and keep every year rather than overwriting. A run of annual captures shows gradual change, which matters when a claim depends on whether something was sudden or slow.
Comparing before and after in Multi Splat
When something does happen, capture the damaged rooms the same way you captured them before. Multi Splat is a free browser tool that lines the two up and shows the difference.
In Align mode you click the same physical feature on both captures, such as a door frame, a window corner or a light switch. Three matched pairs is the minimum, spread wide across the room, and Multi Splat solves the transform that puts the after capture onto the before. Compare mode then draws the two either side of a seam you drag across one shared view, so the ceiling stain appears on one side and not the other. Files you drop in are read in your own browser and are not uploaded. To share the comparison as a link, the captures need to live at a URL; a session built from local files can still be worked on and exported.
For a broker advising a client, two captures and a dragged seam answer "was it like that before?" faster than anyone describing photos. The same approach works for remote site inspection on commercial property.
A rental property condition record for landlords
Landlords face the same question over every deposit. Damage to fixtures and fittings featured in 46 percent of deposit disputes handled by The Dispute Service in England and Wales in 2021-22, with cleaning in 50 percent. Its chief executive pointed to check-in and check-out reports as the evidence that settles them.
A walkthrough at check-in, another at check-out, aligned in Multi Splat, turns that into a rental property condition record a tenant can walk through as easily as the landlord. It does not replace a signed written inventory. It gives that inventory proof of condition to point at.
Where it holds up
Context. A 3D scene shows where things were and how a room looked as a whole, which a photo set cannot. The viewer chooses the angle later, so it answers questions nobody thought to ask on the day. It also asks less of you than a written list: one walk per room instead of one entry per item.
Where it falls down
Small text is the clearest limit. Serial numbers, receipts and labels stay soft in a reconstruction, so the source video or a close still is the readable record. Mirrors, glass and glossy screens reconstruct poorly and can show ghosted reflections. Anything that moved during recording, a curtain in a draught or a cat, leaves smears.
A capture also proves only what was in view. Drawers you did not open and items in a loft you skipped are not in it. And no capture tells you what something is worth; that still needs receipts, valuations or your insurer's own process.
FAQ
How long does it take to record a home inventory on a phone?
For a typical room, three slow loops plus a minute or two on valuables and serial plates takes about five minutes. A small flat can be done in under half an hour. Processing then runs in the cloud and takes 10 to 120 minutes per scene, so you can start the upload and leave it.
Do insurers accept a 3D walkthrough as evidence?
Insurers ask for a record of your possessions and their condition, and a 3D scene is one form of that record. Keep the original video and any receipts alongside it, because they are the files an adjuster will expect. Check with your insurer or broker how they prefer to receive inventory material.
How often should I update a home inventory?
Once a year, and after any significant purchase or renovation. The Connecticut Insurance Department gives the same advice for inventories in general. Keep each year's capture rather than replacing it, since a dated series shows how the house changed and whether damage was sudden or gradual.
Who can see my 3D home inventory?
A new Captures Studio project is private by default and stays out of the public community page. It reaches only the people you send the link to. Multi Splat reads files locally in your browser and does not upload them, so a before-and-after comparison built from local files never leaves your machine.
Can landlords use this for tenancy deposit disputes?
Yes, as a supplement to a signed written inventory. Record each property at check-in and check-out, then align the two in Multi Splat to show any change in condition. Deposit disputes often turn on cleaning and damage, and a walkable record makes the starting condition hard to argue with.
A claim is a dispute about the past, and the past is the one thing you cannot go back and film. Ten minutes with a phone now means the before already exists when someone asks for it, dated and walkable, with the original video underneath it.