Service
Photo Documentation
"It looks fine" is worth nothing three months later when you are trying to establish when something started.
Photographs are what turn a visit from a reassurance into a record. Each visit produces a consistent set — the same angles, in the same order, every time — so that the interesting thing is not any single photo but the comparison between this week and six weeks ago.
That comparison is what catches slow problems. A ceiling stain that grew. Snow that did not melt off one section of roof when it melted off the rest. A crack that opened. Grading that started holding water. None of these are visible in a single frame; all of them are obvious in a sequence.
Photographs also do unglamorous administrative work. Executors need to show beneficiaries the property is being maintained. Sellers need to show a buyer the condition on a given date. Owners returning after six months need to know what was already like that. Anyone dealing with an insurer benefits from an organised, dated record, though a record is evidence rather than a guarantee of any outcome.
Common questions
Will a home watch service satisfy my insurance requirements?
That is entirely for your insurer to determine, and any company that tells you otherwise is making a promise it has no standing to make.
Some policies require checks by a "competent person" at a defined interval and do not specify further. Others are more prescriptive. Some require no checks at all provided water is shut off and drained. Whether a particular service meets a particular condition is a question for the insurer who wrote the policy.
What a documented service does provide is evidence: dated, photographed records of when the property was attended and what was observed. If your policy requires checks, having a record that they happened is materially better than asserting it afterwards.
Before you rely on any arrangement, confirm the requirement with your broker and tell them what you have arranged. If it matters to your coverage, get their confirmation in writing.
How do I receive the reports?
By email after each visit, with a notification when the visit is complete.
Each report contains the arrival and departure time, who attended, the completed checklist, the timestamped photographs, any observations, anything found, anything done, and the next scheduled visit.
Anything urgent does not wait for the report — it is communicated immediately through every channel you have provided.
Reports accumulate into a continuous record of the property, which is what makes them useful beyond the individual visit. Comparing this week against six weeks ago is what catches the slow problems.
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