Paperwork is the least interesting subject in this app and one of the highest returns per hour. It costs nothing, it takes an afternoon, and it removes an entire category of problem: the one where the flood or the fire is over and you cannot prove who you are, what you owned, or what you are insured for.
It also matters in the smaller, likelier situations, which is the honest reason to do it: a lost wallet, a hospital admission, a death in the family, a house move, a benefits claim, a passport application at short notice.
The ninety second test
The test is not whether you own the document. It is whether you could put your hand on it in ninety seconds, in the dark, and carry it out.
Most households would fail that for their own birth certificates, and the failure is not that the certificate is missing. It is that it is in one of four possible drawers, in a house where the power is off.
Apply the test to each tier below, and fix whatever fails it.
The list
Immigration and status documents deserve particular care, because for anybody whose right to live and work here depends on them, losing them is a considerably larger problem than losing a passport, and replacement can be slow.
Three tiers
Sorting by how fast you would need it, rather than by subject, is what makes this work in practice.
Tier 1: goes with you. The grab folder. Small, light, and the first thing out of the house.
- Identity documents for everybody: passports or copies, birth certificates.
- Prescription list and any critical medical information.
- Insurance policy numbers and the emergency claim line.
- The household card with contacts and meeting points. See meeting points and a household plan.
- Some cash. See cash in this domain.
- A memory stick with the digital archive.
Tier 2: findable in the house, in one place. The household file. Everything else in the list above.
Tier 3: stored elsewhere. A copy of the whole archive, held somewhere that would not be affected by the same event: a relative, a friend, a workplace, a safe deposit, or encrypted online storage. See digitising and backing up in this domain.
The point of tier 3 is that a fire or a flood destroys tiers 1 and 2 together, because they are both in the same building.
Where to keep them
- One place, and everybody knows it. A single box, folder or drawer. Not "in the study somewhere".
- A document bag or box that is waterproof and can be carried. A ring binder in a sealed plastic wallet inside a zipped folder is fine and costs very little.
- Fire and water. A domestic safe rated for documents resists heat far better than a cash safe, which is designed to resist attack. If you buy one, buy the right kind and bolt it down, because an unbolted safe is a box somebody carries away.
- Not in the loft, which is the hottest and least accessible part of a burning house, and not in a cellar, which floods.
- Not all in one place. Splitting is the whole point of the three tiers.
- Tell somebody. A file nobody else knows about is a file that is lost if you are the one in hospital.
Originals and copies
Keep originals of: birth, marriage and death certificates, deeds, wills, powers of attorney, qualifications, and anything with a seal or a signature that matters.
Photocopy or scan everything, and keep the copies separately.
Certified copies are useful for anything you may need to send off. A solicitor, a bank or another professional can certify a copy as a true likeness of the original, and many organisations accept them, which means you are not posting your only passport.
Never send an original if a certified copy will do, and note what you have sent, to whom, and when.
Photograph everything on a phone as a minimum. It takes fifteen minutes for a whole file and it is far better than nothing, though it is not a substitute for a proper backup. See digitising and backing up in this domain.
What is hard to replace
Worth knowing so effort goes where it matters.
Certificates can be reordered from the register office, which is genuinely reassuring: the record exists independently of your copy.
Photographs cannot. Scan the family photographs. It is the one category on this page where the loss is permanent, and it is the one people regret most after a fire or a flood.
Find out where an original will is held, and write it down. A will that nobody can find causes real problems, and solicitors' firms merge and close.
The household file
One folder, indexed, that answers the questions somebody would need answered if you were not there.
Put a single index sheet at the front:
- Where the tier 1 grab folder is.
- Where the tier 3 copy is held, and who has it.
- Where original wills and powers of attorney are held.
- Bank and building society names, without account numbers if you prefer.
- Insurance companies and policy numbers.
- Utility suppliers and account numbers.
- Mortgage or landlord details.
- GP surgery, and each person's NHS number.
- Solicitor, accountant, financial adviser if any.
- Where the water stop tap, gas valve and consumer unit are, and 0800 111 999 and 105. See the mains shut-offs.
- Where the spare keys are, and who else holds one.
That index is the single most useful sheet of paper a household can own. It is what a partner, an adult child or an executor would otherwise spend weeks assembling.
Do not put passwords on it. Those belong in a password manager with a documented emergency access route, which is covered in digitising and backing up.
An inventory of possessions, room by room, with photographs, belongs with the file. Take a video walking through the house, opening cupboards and drawers, and store it with the tier 3 backup. It takes ten minutes and it is exactly what an insurance claim needs and what nobody has.
Reviewing it
- Once a year, alongside the smoke alarms and the drill programme. See practising, and a household drill programme.
- Check expiry dates: passports, driving licences, visas, insurance renewals. A passport that expires in four months is a problem for some travel.
- Update after any change: a move, a birth, a death, a marriage, a new car, a new job, a change of school.
- Refresh the photographs and the inventory after anything significant enters the house.
- Check the tier 3 copy is current, because an out-of-date backup is the commonest failure.