Articles - Archived Feature

Preparing Your Household for Hurricane Season

June 1 marks the official beginning of the hurricane season each year, and while having plenty of bottled water on hand and an evacuation route mapped out are critical parts of being prepared, a component that is often overlooked is securing important paperwork and financial information. Many times, it's the hard documents that are the most significant, but are also the most difficult to recover.

Planning ahead is key when it comes to protecting important documentation, so before the threat of a hurricane even enters the picture, consider doing the following:

Take inventory. Videotape, photograph or write down valuables inside and outside your home, including automobiles. Don't forget smaller items such as collectibles and handheld electronics, and note the value, model and serial number if you can. This information could be invaluable to your insurance company.

Lease a safe deposit box. Offering a high level of protection, these boxes should contain: deeds to your home, vehicle titles, birth certificates, passports, insurance policies, marriage certificates, investment certificates, powers of attorney, copies of wills and driver's license numbers.

Create an evacuation box. This box should be durable, lockable and have self-sealing plastic bags that contain: your safe deposit box key, cash or traveler's checks, important phone numbers, account numbers for financial institutions, Social Security numbers, copies of the last three years' tax returns, a current backup of computer files and copies of all the documents in your safe deposit box. You will want to take this box with you in the event you need to leave your home.

If you wait until the last minute, it may be unrealistic to achieve this level of preparedness. That's why it's imperative to go ahead and take these steps—not just in preparation for hurricane season—but for any unexpected emergency situation.