After a fire or a flood, most things can be bought again. Papers are the exception. Proving who you are, what you own and what you are insured for is slow without them, and that is exactly when you need it fast: to claim on insurance, to apply for aid, to see a doctor. A copy of each, kept with your go bag and on your phone, turns weeks of paperwork into days.
Which documents to copy
Identity
- Passports, driver's licenses and ID cards
- Birth and marriage certificates
- Social Security cards
- Residence permits and visas
Money and property
- Insurance policies: home, car, health, life
- The deed or mortgage papers, or your lease
- Proof of address, such as a recent utility bill
- Car title and registration
- Bank and credit card account numbers, with the phone numbers to call
- Your most recent tax return
Health
- Health insurance cards
- A list of prescriptions with doses, allergies and medical conditions
- Vaccination records, your pets' included
- Your doctors' and pharmacy's contact details
Contacts and photos
- A paper list of phone numbers: family, your out-of-area contact, doctors, insurer, employer, school
- Recent photos of each family member and pet
- Photos or a video of every room in your home, for an insurance claim
Paper copies: in the bag, out of the rain
Keep a set of paper copies in a waterproof pouch or a sealed zip bag inside your go bag. The American Red Cross includes copies of personal documents, from passports and birth certificates to insurance policies and the deed or lease to your home, in its basic kit.
Copies, not originals. Losing a bag full of originals would be worse than having none. Keep originals you cannot easily replace in a fireproof and waterproof box at home or in a safe deposit box, and take your passports and IDs with you when you leave.
Digital copies: encrypted, and with you
Scan or photograph every document, front and back. Then decide carefully where the copies live. A camera roll or an email inbox is the wrong place for a passport scan: anyone who gets into your phone or account has it. What you want is storage that is:
- Encrypted, and locked behind a passcode or Face ID.
- Available offline, because networks are often down after a disaster.
- Backed up, so losing the phone does not mean losing the copies.
The Document Vault in GoBag+ keeps photos and PDFs of your IDs, passports and insurance cards. It opens only with Face ID, the files stay on your device, and when they sync they travel through Apple's encrypted iCloud. We never see them.
Keep them current
A copy of an expired passport is little help. Update the set whenever something changes, such as a renewed ID, a new insurance policy, a new baby or a move, and look through it at every six-month check of your kit, along with the photos of your children. Ready.gov's financial preparedness page has a fuller list of records worth keeping.
Next: how to keep the rest of your kit ready.