Emergency Information and Emergency Binders

ORIGINAL POST DATE: July 25, 2010

Lately, I’ve been working on putting together two things: A control journal for my family (Thank you very much, FLY Lady!), and an emergency binder. I thought I would share the emergency binder with you, because I think it’s great to have all the information you need stored in one, easy to access location. Once mine is complete, I plan on getting a safe deposit box at one of our local banks to store it in. I thought I’d walk you through what I’m putting in mine, in order to help you put together yours!

I picked out a three ring binder in a color that doesn’t look like any of the other ones sitting in my bookshelf in my kitchen. In my case, it happens to be purple. I put a label on the front that says Cardin Family Emergency Binder, as well as one on the side, so I can easily read it when scanning the shelf.’

I use tabbed dividers and put the pages in plastic sheet protectors, too.

The first section is for Emergency Contact Information. There is a great page all made up already that you can just print off and use. It’s also perfect for babysitters, nanny’s, and day cares.

I also have a copy of this in my control journal. I’ll talk about a control journal another time, but for now, let’s just focus on the emergency binder.

Section Two: Hannah. This is a section with all relevant information about my 2 year old daughter. I downloaded the forms from Emergency Binder, and keep them saved on my computer for easy updating. The information includes all medical insurance information, copies of her immunization records, a copy of her social security card (with the words COPY written on it, because it’s a color copy), and anything else the forms asked me for. She wears glasses, so I also keep her current eyeglass prescription there.

Sections Three and Four: Melissa and John. It’s pretty much all the same information as for Hannah, only it also includes information about the location of our spare car keys, access information for bank accounts, email addresses and other websites, as well as information about power of attorney and final arrangements.

Section Five: Home Owners Insurance. I actually keep an entire copy of our policy in there.

Section Six: Auto Insurance. Same thing – a whole copy of the policy.

Section Seven: Bank info – pretty self explainitory.

Section Eight: Photos. These are photos of all the big expensive things we own: Cars, piano, computers, TVs, and things like that. I just keep them on a CD, rather than keeping the hard copies of the photos themselves. I also keep copies uploaded somewhere online so I can access them from any computer.

Section Nine: Emergency Plans. Where should we meet if the house is on fire? What if we need to evacuate? What if we need to get away from the house, but not out of our neighborhood? That’s where all this information is. Everyone should know it BEFORE putting it in your binder. If only one of you knows it, and you take the binder, everyone else is out of luck. This also includes things to remember to pack if there is an emergency, such as a hurricane, a few days away and you’ll have time to grab a few things before leaving.

Section Ten: Vital Records – Birth Certificates, marriage certificates, adoption records, car titles, name changes, social security cards, all of that stuff. This is precisely why this information should all be kept in a safety deposit box, and NOT in your home. If your house catches on fire, you may not have time to grab it.

So that’s it, my basics on how to make an emergency binder. Please take the time to do it for you and your family. I pray you’ll never have to use it, but if you do, at least it will all be in one spot.