Family documents
Family documents are the most important documents that one must save at the time of emergency. One must remember to keep all the important family documents safe at hand especially at the time of emergency. Here is the list of important family documents that you must take care of and some tips to safeguard the family documents.
Important family documents
- Will
- Powers of attorney
- Contracts
- Insurance policies, insurance policy numbers and life insurance beneficiary designations
- Stocks and bonds
- Deeds
- Passports
- Family records (birth and marriage certificates, etc)
- Health cards and immunization records
- Social insurance cards
- Licenses
- Savings and bank cheque account numbers
- Credit card account numbers and contact information for companies
- Printed copies of emergency, checklists and instructions
- Important telephone numbers
- Important business documents
- Proof of ownership or lease of your residence
- Social security numbers of family members
- Vehicle, boats, etc identification and license numbers
- Securities, deeds and loan numbers comprising of company name, address and telephone numbers.
- List style and serial numbers of medical devices
- Store these documents in the home emergency supply kit
- Will or living trust
- Letter of instructions
- Photos or video of all valuables for the sake of documentation of insurance claim
- Photo IDs
- Inventory documents
- Immunization records
- Social security cards
- Credit card account numbers and companies documents
- Inventory of valuable household goods
- Important telephone numbers
- Family birth records
- Family marriage records
- Death certificates
- Photocopies of credit and identification cards
- Keep some cash or travelers' cheques and other supplies and provisions with yourself at the time of emergency.
- Bank machines, credit cards and other electronic commerce types may not be working at the time of emergency.
- Important business documents
How to keep emergency documents
- Store the emergency contact list and emergency documents in the tight sealed freezer bag in the emergency supplies.
- You should make sure that you know where the family documents are kept. It is indeed not a good idea to store the documents in the basement especially at the time when there is a risk of flooding or any similar disaster.
- Send one copy of your family documents to the out of state contact. You should also keep another copy in the safety deposit box.
- Some extra copies of emergency contact list and emergency documents should be stored in emergency and carry with you all the supply kits, in wallet, or can give them to a personal support network.
- The copies of important documents can also be kept in the safe location outside your home. It can be the safety deposit box or your friend's or relative's home who lives out of your town.
- Consider making the full documentation of your inventory. You can go through the areas using a video or a camera. You should capture all the belongings on film. The inventory should then be there up on the disk if it is on the computer system.