Purchasing insurance such as home, auto, and life insurance will help you relax and feel safe. But it's just the beginning of creating a game plan that will keep you and your family prepared in the event of an emergency. Decisions about arranging and storing your policies so that they can be retrieved by your spouse or dependents as required must be part of your ongoing plan.
Here are some tips to help you.
1. Keep all your policies in one place. This would include invoices and other correspondence. Let your spouse or dependents know where the key or password is stored. In addition to keeping the papers in a physical location in your home, consider sending a copy to a trusted family member or loved one who will also keep it safe.
2. Electronic Storage. Many people also store their policies on their computers. Many insurance companies also offer online policies.
3. Keep Updated Documents. We recommend keeping old policies for a few years. You can also scan the declaration pages of each policy forever. This may help in the event of an issue arising from some action in the past.
Just be sure to let anyone who would need access to these policies (should something happen to you) know where they are stored. You can put the monthly/quarterly/annual premium bill in your “paid bills” folder, to be cleaned out at the end of each year.
