Insurers want to know exactly what you owned and what it was worth. A few minutes per watch now saves a lot of searching later. Check your own policy too: insurers differ in what they ask for, and some cover valuable watches only when each one is listed.
A checklist for each watch
- Brand, model and reference number.
- Serial number, as engraved on the case or written on the papers.
- Movement and calibre, and anything that sets the watch apart: dial variant, bracelet, modifications.
- Purchase date, seller and price, with the receipt.
- Box and papers: whether you have them, and photos of the papers.
- Clear photos of the dial, the case back and the serial number.
- Service history, with the watchmaker's receipts.
- A current value, and when it was estimated.
Keep it up to date
Watch values move, and an inventory with old prices can leave a collection underinsured. Review the values once a year, and whenever you buy or sell a watch or have one serviced.
Keep a copy away from the watches themselves: in your cloud storage or with your insurer, not only in a folder in the same safe.
In Horology
Horology keeps all of this with each watch, and Horology Pro exports it as a PDF insurance report: a cover, an inventory with the collection's total value, and a page per watch with its photo or dial, identifiers, purchase details and valuation. You can also export the whole collection as a CSV spreadsheet.