Financial Planning For A Disaster

When a natural or man-made disaster strikes, be it a hurricane affecting an entire region or a gas leak affecting one house, it is only natural and appropriate to think first of the very basics of life: safety, shelter, food, and water. But it also makes sense, in the quiet of normal daily living, to make plans for money matters in the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

Here are a few pointers:

• Keep the following items in a place that is easily accessible by you in an emergency, but not so apparent as to invite theft: forms of identification, such as driver's licenses, insurance cards, Social Security cards, passports, and birth certificates; enough checks and deposit slips to last a month, or at least a checking account number; ATM cards, debit cards, and credit cards; telephone numbers and account numbers for providers of financial services; the key to your safe deposit box; and some cash.
• Make copies of your most important documents, ideally on disks, and keep the copies well outside of your home area.
• Use a safe deposit box for items that you are not likely to need in a hurry, such as birth certificates and originals of contracts. Other items can go in a sturdy safe at home.
• In the same waterproof, portable "evacuation bag" in which you can keep medications, first-aid kits, flashlights, and so forth, keep some of the up-to-date financial papers mentioned above. But secure it well, lest you inadvertently provide a treasure trove of your financial information to a thief.
• Choose automated services over dependency on writing and mailing checks and trips to your bank. You can weather a storm financially more easily with direct deposit, automatic bill payments, and Internet banking services.

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