Imagine coming home tonight to see flashing lights, sirens, and a large group of people surrounding what was once your home, which is now a pile of smoldering debris.

Think it couldn't get worse? It can and probably will.

Whether you have a house fire, a tornado hits, or a thief strikes, you'll soon be meeting an insurance adjuster, who will give you a stack of triplicate forms to itemize everything in your home that you lost. You'll have to fill these out, itemizing every item you lost, when you bought it, where you bought it, and how much you paid for it. Unless you have a superhuman memory or a ridiculously meticulous record-keeping system, which is also protected against the fire, flood, tornado, and other disaster that occurred, you are going to have some problems coming up with a comprehensive list of everything you lost.

So, here's what to do:

Take photos of every room of your home and place the prints in a safe place away from your home. If you have a digital camera, you can burn a copy of the photos to a CD or even e-mail the attached photos to yourself, so they are out in your e-mail box somewhere in cyberland and away from your home. If you want to take this a step further, you may want to record the serial numbers of larger items on the back of the photo or electronically as the file name to the photo if you have digital photos. (This should be helpful to police if your home is robbed.)

While this will not save your home, it can save hours of frustration trying to remember what you lost in the case of a disaster and aid recovering what you should. It will also serve as evidence that you did own and possess the items lost should there ever be an accusation otherwise.

This takes very little time or money to do, so why not?

It's cheap "insurance" in the case disaster does strike, but hopefully it won't…