What's Your Castle?

There is an old saying that states, “A man’s home is his castle!” So the question that Karen Backus of Backus Alternatives Small Business and Home Inventory Services likes to ask her public is: “If you came home and found your home completely destroyed from a tornado, your home burnt out due to fire or lighting strike, your home flooded either by weather or ruptured pipes, could you recall from memory the content within your home or business?” Chances are probably not. Furthermore, many of us would have to walk through our destroyed or damaged homes with our insurance adjustor and try to recall from memory the content while dealing with our emotions as we envisioned just exactly what had just happened to our possessions. While in many cases we have 60 days to adjust our claims with our insurance companies, would it not be easier to simply pull an inventory list and check off the items that were or were not there and supply this completed list with pictures to our adjustor? What Backus Alternatives offers to their clients is a means to pull a complete itemized inventory list with pictures after an event, reduce the amount of time spent on the list that is submitted to their insurance agent, and allow the victim to concentrate on the other issues of relocating and recovering from the event.

Backus Alternatives Small Business and Home Inventory Service is a documentation service designed to assist individuals in creating a recovery plan for natural or unnatural life events. This includes events such as tornado, fire, theft, flooding, tree damage, hurricanes, storage units, dorm rooms, collections, pre-nuptials, wills, and many others. The service can provide digital video along with digital stills, an itemized inventory list that includes make, model, and serial numbers, etc. There are also options to have the service store your media at a remote location or online in their database for the purpose of pulling the inventory from anywhere in the country or world. In situations where someone is traveling with a computer, camera, jewelry, etc., theft is sometimes a problem. With the web site individuals can go online anywhere in the country and pull pictures with descriptions, make, model, and serial numbers, thus expediting the processing of police reports and allowing them to place pertinent information out onto the streets to recover property.

The service is designed to meet the needs of the client by providing services individually or as packages with options that can be added. The goal is generally to have the service to come in one time to do a complete itemized list with pictures and video. During the first year the client can submit, in writing, items they wish to add or delete from the inventory in order to have it as current as possible. Then once a year for a small additional fee, the service comes back and updates the existing list and pictures.

It is suggested by Karen Backus, CDM of Backus Alternatives, to also take the time to review your policy with your insurance agent. Individuals need to understand what their limits are as to how much the insurance policy will pay. In many cases additional riders maybe necessary in order to cover items such as guns, jewelry, collections, artworks, etc. Items that we have collected over the years may now exceed our current limits because we did not go back and review what our policy coverage currently is. Also understand that replacement cost is not the same as fair market value or sale price. A mistake that many of us make! We need to understand how some items may have appreciated over the years. Note Backus Alternatives is not an appraisal company, strictly a documentation service.

Backus Alternatives offer the public “Peace of Mind” during life’s transitions. For younger adults, the service offers a method to document items that will be placed in dorm rooms as our children enter college. As we leave college, many individuals are entering into the working world and start collecting property. As we move from one relationship to another, the service offers a means to document property before entering or leaving a relationship. Or simply defining more clearly to the executer of an estate which items are desired to transition to specific family members or groups.

The company is owned and operated by Karen L. Backus, a resident of Gwinnett County for the last 20 years. Karen has over 25 years experience in Inventory and Materials Management with her experience being hands on, from working stockrooms, production floors, materials planning, expediting, purchasing, and chaos management. Karen has spent the last 15+ years working in the Atlanta area handling procurement and crisis management for companies in financial transition due to restructure under Chapter 11, consolidation of manufacturing plants and other facilities, or other performance critical environments. Karen has built a reputation as an entrepreneur within the small business world by assisting or counseling other small business owners.

Please feel free to checkout the Backus Alternative’s web site at www.backusalternatives.com for further information about the company. Also feel free to contact Karen Backus for current specials or a free consultation on how her service may best serve your recovery plan. She can be reached at 770-985-2535. As Karen likes to say, “From Sand Castles to Man Castles, Your Castle Is Our Business.”