An emergency binder for your household's papers

A household's important papers are hard to pull together after a disaster. Gathered ahead of time, they help you prove who's in your household, keep up with payments, talk to the companies that help with recovery and apply for disaster assistance. This template is a binder index for those papers, with a column for where each original is kept.

What's in it

• Household identification, from driver's licenses and birth certificates to passports and children's records.
• Financial and legal, the mortgage or lease, insurance policies, titles, proof of income, last year's tax return and estate papers.
• Medical, insurance cards, prescriptions, immunization records and any advance directive.
• Accounts, each bank, card or lender with its phone number.
• Household contacts, from the landlord or mortgage servicer to doctors, the insurance agent and an out-of-area contact.
• A Before you send box with four checks.

Each document row has columns for whether a copy is in the binder, where the original is, and the date you last updated it. The date column tells you when each paper is due for a look.

How to fill it in

Work through one section at a time, and fill in the where-kept column as you go. For a driver's license or other photo ID, photocopy the front and back. For a passport, copy the first two pages. If you don't have an original, contact the company or agency that issued it for a copy.

In the accounts table, write each bank, card issuer and lender with its phone number, so you can reach them if the cards and statements are lost. Leave account numbers, passwords and PINs out, and don't keep written lists of passwords or PINs with your copies.

For contacts, include the landlord or mortgage representative, doctors and other health care providers, and your insurance agent.

Where to keep it

Keep the binder in a fireproof and waterproof box or safe, in a bank safe deposit box, or with a trusted friend or relative. Electronic copies can go in a password-protected file on a flash drive or external drive kept in that box.

Keeping it current

Look the binder over at a time you'll remember, such as tax season or the start of a new year. Update it when something changes, such as a new insurer, a move, a new bank account or a new child. Which papers to keep, and for how long covers how long each one is worth holding on to.