Your Family's Financial Emergency Plan

In a fire, a flood, or a sudden hospital stay, you may have only minutes to leave home. Later, you will need to prove who you are, what you owned, and what you owe. Families who can find their papers and their insurance policy recover faster.

Fatima rents a basement apartment in Northeast DC with her two children. After a summer storm, water came under the door during the night. Her passport, her children's birth certificates, and her lease were in a box on the floor. She had no copies. This lesson helps you prepare before something like that happens to you.

Your kit is a folder or pouch you can take with you in a few minutes. Keep copies of most papers in it. Keep the originals of hard-to-replace papers in a safe place you can reach, such as a locked fireproof box.

Identity and immigration

• A photo ID for each adult, such as a driver's license or passport
• Social Security cards, or ITIN letters from the IRS
• Birth and marriage certificates
• Immigration papers, such as a green card, work permit (EAD), visa, I-94 record, and USCIS approval notices

Money and home

• A list of every bank, credit card, and loan account, with the company's name, the account number, and the company's phone number. Never write PINs or passwords on it.
• Your most recent tax returns, with your W-2 and 1099 forms
• Your lease or deed, and your renter's or homeowner's insurance policy
• Car title, registration, and auto insurance card
• Photos or a video of what you own, room by room

Health and family

• Health insurance cards and a list of medicines and doctors
• Phone numbers for family, your employer, your landlord, and your children's school
• Copies of any power of attorney or guardianship papers
• Some cash in small bills and a spare house key

• At home: use a fireproof and waterproof pouch or box. Keep it in one place near the door, where every adult knows to find it.
• At a bank: a safe deposit box protects papers you rarely need. You can reach it only when the bank is open, and its contents are not covered by FDIC insurance.
• Online: scan or photograph each document. Save the files in a cloud account protected by a strong password and multifactor authentication, such as a code sent to your phone. An encrypted USB flash drive that needs a password also works.
• With a trusted person: give a sealed copy of your account list and emergency contacts to a relative or friend, if possible one who lives in another area.

Do not post pictures of your documents on social media, and do not send them to anyone who contacts you first. Check your kit once a year, and after big changes such as a new job, a move, or a new baby.

If you are suddenly sick, hurt, detained, or far away, someone may need to pay your rent and care for your children. Plan this now, while you can choose.

• Payable-on-death (POD) beneficiary: name one on each bank account. The bank pays that person after you die. A POD beneficiary cannot use the account while you are alive.
• Power of attorney: a durable financial power of attorney lets your agent pay bills and deal with your bank for you, even if you cannot make decisions. Your agent must use your money only for you.
• Joint account: adding someone as a joint owner is quick, but that person gets the right to take all the money. The money may also be at risk from that person's debts. If you only need help paying bills, a power of attorney is usually safer.
• Standby guardian: DC, Maryland, and Virginia each let a parent name an adult to care for their children if the parent dies, becomes too sick to care for them, or is detained or deported for immigration reasons. What counts, and the forms, are different in each place, and some steps need a court's approval.

Also write a short caregiver plan: who picks up the children from school, who has a key, and where your kit is. Tell those people about the plan. For free help with these papers, contact Legal Aid DC, the DC Bar Pro Bono Center, Maryland Legal Aid, or Legal Services of Northern Virginia. The CFPB's free guides for managing someone else's money explain an agent's duties.

Emergencies in the DC area include flash floods, extreme heat, winter storms, and power outages. Each one can close banks and stop card readers and ATMs.

• Keep some cash at home in small bills, in a safe place.
• Set up online bill pay or automatic payments for rent and utilities, so they get paid even if you cannot get your mail.
• Sign up for free emergency alerts. In DC, use AlertDC. Counties in Maryland and Virginia have their own alert systems.
• Keep your phone charged, and write key phone numbers on paper too.
• If you live on a ground floor on low ground or near a stream, ask about flood insurance.
• If you live in a basement unit, keep papers and valuables up high, off the floor.

Floods need their own policy. Most renter's and homeowner's policies do not cover flood damage. The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) sells renter policies that cover belongings up to $100,000. These policies cover very few things kept in a basement, so ask exactly what is covered. Coverage usually starts 30 days after you buy it, so do not wait for a storm warning. Most floods never lead to a federal disaster declaration, so do not count on FEMA to replace what you lose.