This might be boring, but it's my most essential new year’s photography tip

I’ve been an amateur photographer nearly all my life and semi-professional for much of it. In that time, I’ve found that my camera kit follows the same law of physics that applies to tools in a toolbox and the contents of kitchen cupboards – it grows to take up all the available space.

It can be a sobering moment if you stop and think what the cost of your camera, lenses and accessories adds up to, but a much more sobering experience if it’s all lost, broken or stolen without being properly insured.

If you’re scratching around for something to do with the last weekend before 2026 fully kicks off, I’d very much recommend making a proper inventory of your photography kit and looking around for an insurance policy that suits your needs.

First, the inventory. This can be trickier than you might think. For example, Tamron has a habit of not writing serial numbers on its actual lenses, just on the boxes they’re supplied in. That’s no use if you’ve thrown the box away!

A neat trick is to use the ‘File info’ menu option in Photoshop, which usually lists the serial numbers as well as the model names of the camera and lens used to take the shot.

Next up are purchase receipts. Did you keep them? Maybe not. However, help is often at hand if you bought cameras, lenses, flashguns, tripods or pretty much any other accessory from an online dealer. You can generally go back through your order history on the seller’s site, find the relevant order, and download it or print it as a PDF or hard copy.

And if all else fails, or you want to insure something that was given to you as a gift and for which you don’t have a receipt, one insurance company told me to take a photograph of it (preferably with the serial number showing) with my driver's license or other photo ID in the picture, and keep it as proof of ownership.

Once you’ve listed all your kit and worked out its total market value, you’ll probably find that it’s not covered under your general household contents insurance. Either way, specialist photographic insurance has many and varied advantages.

Most companies that deal in photographic insurance offer various levels of cover to suit amateur, student, semi-professional or fully professional photographers.

Kit is generally covered for accidental loss or damage as well as theft, and sometimes also for mechanical or electronic failure, stretching from dedicated photographic items to computers, laptops, and other products. Just choose what you want to insure.

Further options typically include in-vehicle cover if your kit is stolen while locked and out of sight in an unattended car. Then there’s worldwide coverage, with varying amounts of total days in a year that you’re likely to spend traveling. And you can often optionally cover your portfolio, studio props, and furniture and equipment that you might hire periodically.

I think that a particularly important aspect of photographic insurance is Public Liability, also known as Personal Liability or Third Party Liability. It’s reassuring to know that if you’re shooting or filming and it inadvertently results in someone accidentally being injured, or in accidental damage to someone’s property, that you’re covered for legal costs and payouts.

And that often stretches to "use of or ownership of photographic equipment, sound and lighting equipment, camcorders and videos, binoculars, telescopes and related audio visual equipment". However, you should check the territorial limits of this kind of insurance.

So in a nutshell, my advice is to get it listed and get it covered. As Jack Reacher said, “Hope for the best, plan for the worst.”

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Fancy upgrading your kit after taking inventory? Take a look at the best mirrorless cameras on the market right now.