January 25, 2026
How to Take the Best Inventory: Fast, Accurate, and Insurance‑Ready
When it comes to property loss claims, inventory quality matters just as much as speed. Public adjusters and inventory teams are often working in brutal conditions—no power, extreme temperatures, mold, debris, nails on the floor—so the goal is simple: get in, capture everything accurately, and get out fast.
Over the years, we've studied how inventories are actually taken in the field. Most approaches fall into three categories. Each has strengths, each has weaknesses, and only one truly balances speed, accuracy, and insurance requirements.
1. Audio‑Only Walkthroughs
One common method is walking through the property with a handheld audio recorder and verbally listing items as you move room to room. This approach has been used for decades and remains popular because of how quickly an inventory can be captured.
In real‑world loss environments, audio is appealing because it minimizes friction. There's no stopping to type, no worrying about camera angles, and no juggling multiple tools. You simply speak and keep moving. For large losses or unsafe conditions, that speed matters.
However, the simplicity of audio is also its biggest weakness. Without images, critical information is missing. Visual proof, condition, finishes, brand details, and context are all lost. Later, teams often find themselves trying to match photos taken separately back to spoken line items—an error‑prone and time‑consuming process. Many carriers ultimately require item‑level images anyway, making audio‑only inventories incomplete.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Extremely fast to capture | No images or visual proof |
Minimal friction in the field | Missing brand, condition, and finish details |
Easy to use in harsh environments | Difficult to match photos to items later |
Efficient for large losses | Often insufficient for insurance carrier review |
2. Photos + Typed (or Voice‑to‑Text) Descriptions
Another common approach is photographing each item individually and typing—or voice‑to‑texting—a description for every photo. This method is often taught as a best practice because it produces highly detailed, well‑documented inventories.
When done thoroughly, this approach captures everything carriers want to see. You get multiple angles per item, clear descriptions, and strong visual support. From a desk‑review perspective, it's excellent.
The downside shows up in the field. Taking photos, stopping to type, fixing voice‑to‑text errors, and managing hundreds of individual items dramatically slows the process down. In properties with no electricity, extreme temperatures, mold, or debris, this extra time isn't just inconvenient—it's unsafe. Teams end up spending far longer on site than they want to, increasing fatigue and risk.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Very detailed documentation | Significantly slower than audio |
Multiple photos per item | Requires frequent stopping and typing |
Strong insurance carrier support | Painful in cold, heat, mold, or debris |
Clear item‑level records | Increases time on site substantially |
3. Video Inventory (Done Right)
After spending years thinking about this problem, we landed on the most effective solution: video.
Video naturally captures both visual and audio information in a single, continuous pass. It allows teams to move through a loss quickly while preserving context, detail, and proof. The challenge historically hasn't been recording the video—it's been turning that raw footage into a usable, itemized inventory.
The hard problems were always the same: how to extract individual line items from continuous footage, how to associate the correct images with each item, and how to support multiple images per item. Until recently, there wasn't a practical way to do this at scale.
Pros and Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
Captures audio and visuals together | Raw video alone is unstructured |
Fast, continuous walkthrough | Historically hard to process |
Preserves context and detail | Requires specialized technology |
Ideal for harsh environments | Not usable without automation |
How InventoryQuant Makes Video Work
InventoryQuant is the first system built specifically to turn a video walkthrough into a complete, insurance‑ready inventory.
Step 1: Walk the loss with your camera.
Record a video as you move through the property. When you reach an item, pause briefly and describe it out loud. Spoken descriptions provide the structure AI needs to reliably identify and separate items.
Step 2: Capture multiple angles—hands‑free.
Some items require more than one image. While recording, simply say things like "take a picture here," "front view," "side view," "top view," "here's the SKU," or "here's the barcode." InventoryQuant captures the correct frames automatically.
Step 3: Upload and let the system work.
Once uploaded, InventoryQuant extracts every line item, associates it with the correct image or images, preserves spoken details, and outputs a clean, structured inventory ready for review and submission.
What used to take hours of manual reconciliation now happens automatically.
Why Video Wins in the Real World
Video inventory combines the speed of audio with the detail of photos—without the tradeoffs. Teams spend less time on site, capture better documentation, and produce inventories that stand up to carrier scrutiny.
Most importantly, it works in the environments adjusters actually face—not ideal ones.
The Future of Inventory Is Simple
The best inventory method is the one that captures everything accurately without slowing you down.
That's why InventoryQuant was built around video first—and why teams using it produce better inventories with less effort and less time on site.
If you want to take faster, more accurate, insurance‑ready inventories, video is the answer—and InventoryQuant is how you do it.
Learn more at inventoryquant.com.