When an emergency strikes, you usually don’t have the time to go around the house and find what you need. Having your most important documents in one easy to grab binder and save you time in an emergency and hassle later on.
What you should include:
- Birth certificates
- Social Security cards
- Immigration and naturalization paperwork
- The deed to your house
- Pink slips and car registration information
- Phone numbers and addresses for your children’s schools and daycares
- Copies of your insurance policies
- Passports
- Cash
- Copies of prescriptions
- Will, power of attorney, advance directive
- A written plan of where to meet your family members in case of an emergency
- Anything else that might be hard to replace
Where you should store your emergency binder:
Keep your binder in a fireproof safe or a lockbox. Make sure your binder is hidden but is still easily accessible and close to an exit. Your emergency binder can even have a misleading title so that it’s not a target for theft.
Yes, it can be risky to keep all this sensitive information together, but the costs of not having some of these documents and essentials in an emergency can be even greater. You never know when an emergency will strike and how much time you’ll have to gather necessities. Having an emergency binder will help you feel more secure and organized, no matter what happens.
Source: Ventura County Star, Jan 14, 2017