What is an Emergency Binder?
An emergency binder contains critical family information in case of an emergency. It can include details such as legal documents, medical records, emergency contacts, financial information, website usernames and passwords, etc. In the case of a death or other crisis, it can make an extremely stressful event just a little easier for those who will need to manage the affairs. The binder can serve as the survivor’s one-stop-shop for information on how to run the family and household.
My wife and I divide our household responsibilities pretty evenly. I manage the mortgage and retirement accounts, for example, while she manages all the routine utility bills. If something were to happen to her, it would take me hours to track down all of the various username and passwords for those accounts. That is probably the last thing on earth I’d want to deal with at that time. We worked on the binder together to create a comprehensive account of all key information the other spouse would need if shit hits the fan.
Why Now?
We’ve been thinking about making a binder for a while, but my upcoming mini-retirement was a good reason to finally buckle down and do it. I will be in the woods a lot over the next two years. I might get eaten by bear.
But much more likely, I’ll be fine but unreachable. If and when I’m out of cell service range, my wife will have all our important information at her fingertips.
How to Make a Binder
I opted to purchase a fillable PDF to make the job easier. The template cost me $30 which I think is reasonable. Although I could have created it myself with a simple word doc or something similar, with the template I felt more confident that I had covered all my bases. To me it was worth $30 to not have to think about what to include; I just had to fill out the template. I purchased mine from EmergencyBinders.com, though there are several other similar products out there.
It was still a lot of work though. It took us a total of about 12 hours to complete the binder. For the most part, it wasn’t hard work but it was definitely tedious.
Binder Contents
Key Family Information
- Emergency Numbers
- Family Contacts
- Documents (birth certificates, social security cards, passports, etc.)
- Medical Information
- Pet Care Information
Financial Information
- Family Insurance Details
- Basic Financial Information
- Investment Information
- Mortgage Information
- Rewards Programs
Need to Know Information
- Where to Find Original Documents, Keys, & More
- Employer Information
- Military Information
- Online Account Information
- Business Information
- Burial / Memorial Service Preferences
- Personal Notes
- Emergency Call Log
The most challenging part for me was thinking about burial and memorial wishes. It’s not that I mind thinking about death, it’s just that I drew a complete blank. I had never really thought about it before and had no opinions on the matter. Zero ideas. I figured though that a little information for a grieving family member would be better than nothing, so I forced myself to jot down a few thoughts. It will likely be many many years before anyone needs that information, and my notes can evolve and expand as I get older.
Other Actions
The process of making the binder prompted a few other actions to make sure all our affairs were in order.
- Medical Power of Attorney – Designates a health care agent if you’re incapable of providing consent for medical decisions.
- Advance Medical Directive – Spells out health care wishes if incapacitated, such as use life support and pain relief. Both of the above legal documents were easily made using an online legal form website. It took less than 5 minutes.
- Firesafe Box – Many of our important documents are digital, but for things that we need hard copies of, we keep in one firesafe box. We already had this box, but this was a good excuse to go through it and make everything was where it was supposed to be.
- Password Manager – I finally set up a secure password manager to manage all of my online accounts.
I’m Glad I Did It
It feels really good to have this project done. Making an emergency binder is a little morbid and not a ton of fun, but I think it’s well worth the effort. Our binder isn’t perfect and I probably missed some things. I had to remind myself several times during the process to not let perfect be the enemy of good.
Now that the first iteration of the binder is complete, we plan for it to be a living document that we update periodically. Hopefully we won’t ever need it.