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Emergency Documents You'll Need

by admin 12 Mar 2012

Shop Clearance Sale Emergency Preparedness

When planning out what to put in your 72-hour kit or bug-out-bag, it's important to also have extra copies of emergency documents. It could indeed save your life. There are certain identification, insurance and personal documents that you’ll wish you had during an emergency. Here are a few things to consider while collecting your important papers:

How to store

It’s pretty easy to digitize your records to fit them all onto a hard drive or flash drive. If you choose not to go this route, you can always keep copies of these documents in a water-proof folder. You might consider creating a master list (or Excel spreadsheet) to track all of your documents. However you store your documents, you’ll want to make sure that they are housed in a waterproof document holder of some sort. There are also fire-proof containers that protect against heat damage.

Where to store

During an emergency, you’ll want to know where this information is. We recommend that you put this information in a 72-hour kit. By placing this information on one of the exterior pockets, it will be easy to access if you need to get to it quickly. You can also make copies to be placed in your emergency supplies at home.

Emergency Documents for a Disaster


Types of documents

Identification papers: Copies of documents like your passport, driver’s license, social security card, birth certificates, and others are important to include in your emergency kit.

Insurance papers: If a natural disaster struck, how would you get in contact with your insurance company? It’s a good idea to have contact information for your insurance company and bank. You should include account numbers. Be sure to include photos, descriptions and other documentation about the items in your home. Some families have even taken video tours of their home to show proof of them owning certain items in their home. You could also include copies of house or property ownership if that becomes disputed.

Personal documents: While preparation might not protect certain family heirlooms, you can also take precautions against loosing certain family valuables like marriage certificates, treasured photos, family history records or old family keepsakes. Some families have completely digitized their records to fit on a single flash drive or hard drive.

Medical documents: Making copies of vital medical records is a great thing to include in emergency plans. These could include allergies, prescriptions that you are on, immunizations, medical conditions, etc.

Contact information: You should have the names and phone numbers of a few vital contacts - a family relative that lives out of state, your insurance contact, etc. You can also include information on who people should contact if you or your pack is found.

List

Here is a list of some of the documents that you should consider:

Insurance
  • Household and place of business inventory (recorded using photographs, videotape, or stored on a database manager computer program).
  • Duplicates of insurance policies (life, health, auto, home, hazard, etc.)
  • Mortgage documents
  • Real estate deeds
  • Title papers
  • Motor vehicle titles and bill of sale, serial or VIN numbers
  • Wills and trusts
  • Safe deposit box: location, number, inventory of contents, location of key, authorized persons to access box
  • Investment portfolio
  • Stocks, bonds and other securities
  • Bank, checking, savings account numbers or certificates
  • Credit card accounts (company and account numbers
Medical
  • Family health and medical records
  • Employee benefits information
  • Letter of instruction in case of death
  • Funeral and burial plans
  • Name, address, phone number of attorney, financial advisor and insurance agents
  • Photocopy of documents carried in wallet or purse
Identification
  • Birth, marriage, and death certificates
  • Adoption and custody decrees
  • Citizenship papers
  • Military papers
  • Passports, visas
  • Social security card (or card numbers)
  • Employment records
Personal
  • Family photos, videotapes, etc.
  • Important books
  • Personal family history
  • Family genealogy records

So what other ideas have you found helpful? What records do you keep? How do you keep them?  

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