9 Things Colorado Homeowners Should Photograph Before Anything Goes Wrong

A homeowner outside Denver scrolls back through two years of phone photos, looking for one clear shot of her roof from before last month’s hailstorm.

She doesn’t find one.

These are the things Colorado homeowners should photograph before anything goes wrong.

Note: This is general information, not insurance advice. Coverage details and documentation requirements vary by policy and are subject to change, so check the specifics with your insurer or the Colorado Division of Insurance.

1. Serial Numbers on Big Appliances

Colorado’s Division of Insurance wants homeowners to know exactly what an adjuster asks for before they ever file a claim.

That means proof of purchase, including the model and serial numbers stamped on every washer, dryer, furnace, and refrigerator in the house.

Not the brand you remember.

It’s the number stamped on the tag, usually tucked inside a door or on the back panel.

A close-up photo of every tag now beats a frustrating dig through drawers and old email receipts after a storm, a fire, or a break-in.

2. Your Roof Before Hail Season

Hail moves a Colorado homeowner’s insurance bill more than any other kind of weather these days.

The state’s Division of Insurance found in February 2026 that hail is the single biggest driver behind rising premiums statewide.

It eats up roughly half the average bill along the Front Range and the Eastern Plains.

Few homeowners see it coming.

A clear, dated photo of the roof, taken from the ground and from a ladder, covers the shingles, the flashing, and the gutters.

That photo gives an adjuster something to compare against after the next storm.

Without one, whether that dent was already there before last month’s storm comes down to a homeowner’s word against the adjuster’s.

3. Photos and Video of Every Room

Colorado’s Division of Insurance calls for a full, itemized list of everything in the house, not a rough guess at what used to be there.

A slow walk-through video does more of that work than a stack of separate photos ever will.

Open the closets.

Open the kitchen drawers, the garage cabinets, and the bins stacked in the crawl space too.

Narrate what you’re looking at as you go, since your voice naming the bookshelf in the office does the labeling work for you later.

Pause the video long enough to snap a few still photos of anything it moves past too fast to read clearly.

That includes a serial number tag or a piece of jewelry tucked in a drawer.

4. Receipts for Anything Expensive

A Colorado homeowner’s standard policy rarely pays out what jewelry, art, firearms, or other pricey items are worth.

Many standard policies cap jewelry theft coverage around $1,500 total, no matter what a ring or a watch cost.

One item can exceed it.

A homeowner has to schedule the piece with the insurer ahead of time to collect its full worth.

That requires a professional appraisal filed before anything happens, not after.

A photo of the receipt or the appraisal itself, dated and kept somewhere besides the house, is what turns that process into paperwork instead of a fight.

5. Your Water Heater’s Age Tag

Colorado’s Front Range can swing sharply within a single hour, and that swing is hard on pipes and water heaters.

In February 2025, a chinook wind pushed the temperature at Boulder’s airport up 29 degrees in that span.

Boulder’s thermometer wasn’t broken.

That kind of freeze-and-thaw whiplash is what cracks pipes and water heaters.

When a water heater fails, an insurer depreciates the payout based on the unit’s age and its condition right before the loss.

A dated photo of the data plate, and the tank around it, is what a homeowner points to when pushing back on that depreciation.

Psst! How photo-ready is your home for a claim? Run through this checklist and see where you stand.

6. Trees and Defensible Space

Colorado’s wildfire risk runs straight through a homeowner’s yard, starting with the trees closest to the house.

The Colorado State Forest Service breaks defensible space into three rings.

The first ring clears the five feet nearest the house.

The second reduces fuel out to 30 feet.

The third thins trees out to 100 feet on flatter ground.

A Colorado law that took effect July 1, 2026, ties an insurance discount directly to that work.

That’s new leverage.

Insurers have to lower a policy’s cost when a homeowner can demonstrate they’ve done it.

Photos of the cleared brush, the trimmed branches, and the open space around the foundation, taken the day the work finishes, are exactly what that proof looks like.

What Colorado’s Wildfire Discount Law Requires

Colorado’s wildfire discount law does more than require an insurer to lower a policy’s cost for cleared brush.

The same law gives every homeowner the right to see their wildfire risk score once a year.

Homeowners can also appeal that score directly with the insurer if it looks wrong.

A dated photo of finished mitigation work, like a cleared tree line, becomes the evidence a homeowner needs if that appeal ever happens.

7. Fences, Sheds, and Anything Detached

A Colorado home’s fence, shed, or detached garage sits under a different, smaller insurance limit than the house does.

That coverage, often labeled other structures on a policy, is typically capped at just 10% of what the house is insured for.

Ten percent doesn’t stretch far.

On a $400,000 dwelling limit, that’s a $40,000 ceiling for everything outside the four walls.

A shed full of tools and a fence around the yard eat into that number fast.

A dated photo of the fence and the shed is what keeps a homeowner from guessing at what was there.

Take it before hail flattens a fence panel or wind peels a shed roof.

8. Your Electric and Gas Meter

Colorado utility customers now live with planned power shutoffs during high wildfire risk, and a home’s electric and gas meters are worth documenting before that season even starts.

Xcel Energy has cut power to tens of thousands of Colorado customers during these planned shutoffs.

One stretch in December 2025 left some customers without power for up to 61 hours.

Xcel doesn’t reimburse homeowners directly for what an outage costs them.

Filing instead means going through a homeowner’s insurer, and Xcel’s process for confirming that one address was affected can take 90 days or more.

Meanwhile, the bills keep coming.

A baseline photo of the meter reading, taken before wildfire season starts, gives a homeowner something to compare against.

That matters most when a claim depends on proving exactly when the power went out.

9. Basement Walls and Window Wells

Colorado’s spring runoff and heavy snowmelt make a basement’s condition worth documenting long before the water shows up.

What those walls look like right now becomes evidence the moment a homeowner files a claim.

Nearly every standard homeowners policy draws the same line: It covers water damage that happens suddenly, and excludes damage that built up slowly.

That line decides everything.

That’s the whole argument behind a lot of water-damage disputes.

A dated photo of dry, crack-free basement walls and clear window wells, taken before spring runoff, is what proves the water that showed up later arrived suddenly instead of slowly.