While there's no legal obligation to take photos of your caravan, it's well worth doing. In the unfortunate event of having to make a claim, photos can give definitive proof of details, helping to speed up the claims process.
Now that digital cameras are so cheap and even the lowest spec mobile phones have them, it's easier than ever to build up a library of photos. But you need to make sure they're kept safe.
What should you record?
With modern caravans the CRiS number will tell the insurer the make, model and age, but photos of the inside and exterior can help show the condition. If you think you're being offered too little for your caravan if it, god forbid, is completely written off, your photos can prove the condition and help to build the case for a better offer.
Accessories, particularly ones you bought after the caravan, should be photographed as well. Try and include manufacturers' details, brand and model names, even serial numbers - all of this will help to confirm that you had what you are claiming for.
Paperwork too
You can even store paperwork - either scan it, or if you don't have a scanner, just take a close up photo and check that you can read the details. You can do this with ownership documents but it's probably most useful for receipts for accessories you buy - it's easier to keep track of a photo on a computer than a crumpled piece of paper.
Keep it all safe
This brings us neatly to storing all those photos - if you leave them all on your camera or phone then if that's lost, all your photos are gone too. So you need to get them onto a PC, laptop, Mac - whatever you have. If you haven't got one, we've got solutions for that too, toward the end of the article.
Keep them in a separate folder or catalogue - how you do this will depend whether you use software provided with the camera or phone, or whether you use the software on the computer. There are simply too many different types for us to give specific guidance here.
Make sure the dates are correct after they've been copied - sometimes the date will be the date when you put them on the computer, not the date when you took the photo.
Backup too
But computers, as we all know, sometimes have a mind of their own as well; so you need to make a more permanent copy. Most computers have a CD or DVD burner so you can create discs with all your photos or you can put them onto a USB stick.
USB sticks are more volatile though, and also prone to being overwritten if you forget what's on them. So a CD or DVD is probably a better bet.
Using the cloud
Another option these days is to keep all your photos on 'the cloud', which is the way people are referring to the internet these days. In fact many smartphones will backup your photos automatically to storage on the internet - iPhones will use iCloud, many Android phones will use Google's Drive and Windows phones will use OneDrive.
You can also use apps that will copy to a service which is independent from the type of phone - Dropbox is one example. This is useful if you're using different computers and phones around the family because you'll all be able to access the photos whenever you need to rather than waiting for the person with the iPhone or the laptop to come home.
With all of these services make sure you've got an account that allows you to transfer lots of files or wait until you're at home and use your WiFi. Photos can be very large.
What if you don't have a computer?
If you don't have a computer your options are more limited but if you're using a smartphone to take your photos then you can bypass the computer part of the steps above and copy files straight to a cloud-based storage service.
If you're just using a digital camera then the best thing would be to buy a separate digital storage card for the camera and use it just for your caravan photos. Make sure you label it clearly and store it somewhere where it won't get overwritten accidentally with wedding photos or holiday snaps.
We hope you never use them
Hopefully this will all be wasted effort. Why? Because we'd rather none of our customers ever have to make a claim. But if you do, we'd like you to have it settled as quickly as possible and a good stash of photos is a great way of making sure of that.
