I originally set up our family’s Important Information Binder back in 2012, soon after our first child was born.
As crazy as it might sound, this binder was the peace of mind I needed “just in case” something happened to Dave, to me, or to both of us and another family member had to take over our home, our finances, my business, our child (now children!), etc.
At the time, my worst nightmare was not being able to care for my new baby, my business, or our home.
Honestly, this fear is still at the top of my ‘nightmare situations’ list — which is why our Important Information Binder is so… well… important to me. 🙂
So… what exactly is an Important Information Binder?
An Important Information Binder is exactly like it sounds — a binder or folder that contains all documents and information that is very important for YOU, your family, your home, your finances, etc.
The binder should be easily accessible (but not right out in the open) in the event of an emergency or crisis situation, and only a few close friends or family members should know the location.
What Binder Do We Use?
Here’s the Amazon link to the exact same Samsill Duo Binder we use — however, it looks like there’s only a few available (and only in hot pink!)
Here’s a link to a very similar binder with more in stock.
Why We Have an Important Information Binder:
Along with the reasons I mentioned above, I’m also in charge of all the finances for our household and I need to know that these important functions can be completed whether I am around and able to do them or not.
I pay the bills, manage the finances, log into our online accounts, set up new accounts, run my business, and make sure our household and our finances run smoothly every month.
Yes, Dave knows the “big picture” about what’s going on with our finances (and I have almost all financial matters set to auto-pay). However, he would be at a loss if he needed specific log-in information for various accounts (especially my business accounts).
Also, as I’ll share more about below, our Important Information Binder contains names, address, and contact information for very important people that would need to be notified if something happened to us. No one in our families would know who to contact or how to contact them without this binder.
And finally, I actually use our binder on a very regular basis! It’s a handy tool to quickly lookup an account number, find a password, access contact information, etc.
Our Important Information Binder gives me the reassurances that I’ve done everything I can do to make it as easy as possible IF anyone else needs to step into my shoes for a while.
Why YOU Need an Important Information Binder!
Personally, I feel EVERY household should have some type of Important Information Binder for emergency situations (even if you don’t have children, even if you are single, even if you are young, even if you are very old and think you have all your “ducks in a row”).
You just never know when a crisis or emergency might happen. Someone could die, get seriously injured, go missing, be mentally or physically unable to run a household, or even be unexpectedly away from their home and family for an extended period without time to prepare.
Each of the above situations would require extra outside help from family and friends. And you know what would make life SOOOOO much simple, easier, and less stressful for those friends and family members who are trying to take over for you?
An Important Information Binder!
Since I first shared my Important Information Binder on my blog (way back in 2013) I have gotten hundreds of comments and emails from people I’ve never met, gushing on and on about how my post was just the encouragement and motivation they needed to FINALLY create their own Important Information Binder.
I’ve read heart-warming stories of how these binders have simplified the lives of complete strangers — reducing anxiety, creating more order and structure, and providing peace of mind.
I’ve also gotten emails from readers who shared their nightmare stories… explaining that if it weren’t for the fact that they had followed my instructions to create their own Important Information Binder, they would have been totally lost.
It’s hard to think about these worst-case-scenario situations… but I’d always rather be prepared “just in case”. Wouldn’t you?
If you’re ready to set up your own Important Information Binder, read through the list below to see how WE set up OUR binder.
I realize you might have different documents, but this list will at least get you on the right track!
Also, get a copy of my FREE Important Information Binder Cover Sheet Printables by entering your email address below. You’ll use these to set up your binder and keep it neat and organized!
FORM
What to Keep In Your Important Information Binder:
NOTE: I usually make photocopies of our important documents for our binder and keep the originals in our fire-proof safe. Sometimes, depending on the document, I keep the originals directly in the binder.
INSIDE COVER:
- Business cards for all our “VIPS” (bank managers, financial investors, accountant, attorney, website developer for my blog, doctors, dentist, mechanic, etc.)
- Information regarding the whereabouts of our fireproof safe and the key
PERSONAL INFO SECTION:
- Cover Sheet
- Photocopy of our Marriage License
- Photocopies of Dave and my Driver’s Licenses, Social Security Cards, Birth Certificates, and Passports
- Dave’s most recent teaching certificate
- Each of our children’s’ Birth Certificates, Social Security Cards, Baptism Certificate, and immunization records
FINANCIAL INFO SECTION:
- Cover Sheet (most of our financial info is just numbers and passwords, so it’s almost all on our cover sheet)
- A signed agreement from our financial investor
- A listing of all my Savings Bond numbers, valuation, and expiration dates (I got SO many growing up)
- Statements showing our student loans were paid in full
INSURANCE INFO SECTION:
- Cover Sheet
- The current “Annual Report” for both Dave and my life insurance policies
- The contract for our health and dental insurance
- A booklet of information regarding Dave’s life insurance through his school (in the back accordion section of our binder)
- A booklet of information regarding Dave and my extra life insurance (in the back accordion section of our binder)
- A booklet of information regarding our health insurance (in the back accordion section of our binder)
HOME & AUTO INFO SECTION:
- Cover Sheet
- Official Warranty Deed showing that all real estate we own is actually owned by our Living Trust not Dave and I personally
- Information for our home title, purchase agreement, certificate of survey for our property, and the mortgage payoff
- Most recent Property Assessment and Taxable Valuation Report
- Information for our home and auto insurance
- Certificate of Title, Michigan Registration, and License Plate Renewal Notice for each vehicle
RETIREMENT INFO SECTION:
- Cover Sheet
- Information for Dave’s school’s pension plan
- Information for each of our Roth IRA’s
- Dave’s most recent Social Security Statement
- Document showing that all our retirement accounts are property of our Living Trust
MY BUSINESS INFO SECTION:
- Cover Sheet
- My most recent LLC filing
- My most recent signed W-9
- My Business filing through the state
- My Employer Identification information through the IRS
- A document from the IRS stating that I file taxes as an S-corporation even though I’m technically an LLC
- A Membership Certificate stating that my business is owned by me and that the ownership transfers to our Living Trust if anything happens to me.
I think that’s everything.
A Bit More About the Printable Cover Sheets:
The Cover Sheets serve as “at-a-glance” reference sheets with the majority of our important information typed up and printed on one piece of paper that we put at the beginning of each section in our binder.
- phone numbers and email addresses
- usernames and passwords
- specific account information
- contact information for VIP’s
ALLLLLLLL of that information is on the individual Cover Sheets.
Download your Printable Cover Sheets Here.
It is a little bit of work upfront to compile all the necessary information (especially if you have lots of different accounts). But since we all have a little extra time at home right now, this is be a great project to tackle!
Once it’s done, your Important Information Binder will require very little maintenance (see below).
How often should you update your Binder?
I update our Important Information Binder at the beginning of every calendar year, or if we have a major life-change in the middle of a year (new home/address, changing insurance companies, a new baby with a new SSN, etc.)
This seems to work well for our lifestyle, however, you’ll need to decide what works best for you and your family too.
Thanks to my printable at-a-glance “Cover Sheets”, it’s super quick and easy to update this document and print off a new copy every year.
I can usually get everything updated and the new documents printed off in about 30 minutes!
Where should you store your Binder?
After I fill out the Important Information Binder printable document, I save one copy of that file to my portable hard drive, another “encrypted” copy to Dropbox, and then I print off a hardcopy to actually put IN the binder itself.
We then store our physical binder in a convenient location in our home that we can easily access.
Both our parents know where the binder is located as they would most likely be the people who would “take over” for a while if we couldn’t.
Here are some ideas of where you might store your binder:
- With recipe books in the kitchen
- With photo albums in the living room
- Out in plain sight labeled “family vacation” or “favorite memories”
- On the tool bench in the basement
- In the game cabinet
- With the craft supplies
- In the office labeled “to-do’s” or “manuals”
I know many people keep all their important information locked away for safe-keeping; however, I figure that if a thief came into my home, they would first look for a safe before they bothered looking for cookbooks, family photo albums, craft supplies, or your game cabinet.
At least that’s my theory!
Plus, as I mentioned above, we actually use our Important Information Binder on a regular basis, so it’s nice to have it easily accessible and not buried away in our safe.
I am 100% confident this binder will be hugely helpful if/when it’s ever needed in any type of emergency situation. I can’t tell you how much peace of mind that gives me on a daily basis!
I hope this information motivates you to create some type of Important Information Binder for you and your family.
I know you will never regret it!
Heather says
Please send free printable
Andrea says
Hi heather — if you entered your email for the free printable, it should be in your inbox (check your spam if you don’t see it). Thanks!
Terri says
How do I download the cover sheets?
Andrea says
If you enter you email address in the provided box, the link to the document will be emailed directly to you 🙂
Let me know if you can’t figure it out and I’ll see what I can do. Thanks!
Lynda Larsen says
How can I order the binder.?
What is the price?
Andrea says
Lynda, Here is the link to the specific binder I use (I got mine for around $10 many years ago) but other binders would work just fine!
Lisa says
THANK YOU!!!!! I considered myself a planning and organization failure. This really helped me. I followed the link to purchase a binder and subscribed. I am grateful I found your site.
Andrea says
awesome! and… you’re welcome 🙂
Angel says
A few years back we had an emergency. A wildfire came through our neighborhood. We had to evacuate and had about 20 minutes to gather up things to take with us. If I had had a binder like this put together then, I could have grabbed it and had all my info with me in the hotel. Needless to say I had to go by memory and whatever info I had in my laptop and phone at the time. Great idea, I am ordering a binder now!
Andrea says
oh no — sorry to hear about this… but I’m so glad you’re ordering the binder!
Trudy says
Another good thing to have is a listing of all your and your spouse passwords. You constantly hear on the news of someone needing to get into a Facebook or Apple Account and, because they don’t have the password, it causes a lot of hardship.
Also, it seems like we are notified every 6 months that our credit card has been “compromised” and a new one appears. Because we pay several bills automatically via credit card, having to remember all the passwords and procedures to update the records with these companies is a pain in the neck. I keep a listing of what we pay via credit card and the how to’s of updating.
Andrea says
yup, all the passwords are on our “cover sheets” at the beginning of each section. I update so our binder is (almost) always current.
Kellie Denton says
I remember your post about this from years ago because it prompted me to make a binder for our family – thank you! Six months ago my dad passed away and I became executor of his estate. I had NO idea the amount of work that goes into this and I wish I could stress to readers just how incredibly helpful this would’ve been to me! Just curious, do you keep your will in here (or a copy)? Or do you have instructions on how to find it? (You may have mentioned this already and I glanced over it). My family literally had to tear the house apart to find my dad’s and it took weeks.
Andrea says
We got several copies of our will and gave them to various family members already. We also have our will in the binder.
Jennifer says
Thank you so much for sharing!
Gloria P says
I do agree that this is an important document to create but I question the safety of having it on my hard drive. Computers occasionally need to be repaired (extra eyes potentially looking at files) and computers need to be upgraded which creates an old hard drive that must be properly taken care of and not just recycled with the semi-annual electronics event. So my thought would be to print out the forms you have created but HAND WRITE the account numbers and passwords for safety sake. Maybe I’m overly paranoid but my life’s savings are at stake. Thank you!
Andrea says
thanks Gloria.
I guess in my opinion, I figure if someone wants my information badly enough, they will be able to find it. On the contrary, if my family NEEDS my information in a time of crisis or emergency, I want to make it extremely simple and easy for them to find everything they need.
I like your idea of writing the numbers in by hand though — that’s a good “happy medium”!
PW says
I am so grateful you take time to post this. It is absolutely so important to have this type of information readily available. You often start looking for information like this when a crisis occurs and when you need to concentrate on the crisis you get more stressed and use more time looking and searching for very important and necessary information. Been there done that with numerous elderly family members who had no children, lived by themselves then got sick or was in the hospital and we needed to pay bills, find medical powers of attorney while trying to work full time and keep our household intact. Impossible. My husband is an attorney and some of his clients he has to bill to go thru papers (piles of them) files, and make calls so set aside time and do this for your own good. It is a big job but break it down into smaller tasks until you complete.
Alicia says
This is such a good idea to have all personal info in one place! Right now I store most/all of these documents in our filing cabinet that locks, and that’s worked well for us so far, but I can see how it would be extremely beneficial to have everything at an arms reach !
Andrea says
yes! it’s so crazy because I originally created this binder for those emergency situations, but I personally end up using it on a very regular basis because it’s so much faster and easier than searching through the filing cabinet or looking up my information online!
BB says
I noticed when I went to print this, it said ‘Evernote’ at the bottom. Was this just the print option for this, or do you use Evernote? If you do use Evernote, I’m sure some posts on how you use it, do you use ‘templates’ that I’ve seen offered on occasion, or any other means of working with Evernote?
I do have Evernote, and use it for shopping lists – groceries, car needs (wiper blades measurements needed for all the cars!). measurements for our house or things in our house that we are looking for replacements as well as things like paint names/brands, Amazon needs,
However, I do find it a bit ‘ornery’ at times, so some info from you and/or other users on things they do/how they use it could be helpful, if you’re so inclined. 😀
Andrea says
Hmmm… that’s weird — they are just Word documents so there is nothing with Evernote at all. I wonder, are you trying to print directly from the internet or are you actually downloading the Word documents?
Kelly K. says
When I became guardian of my father, it was in the midst of his dementia decline. He had purged a lot of important documents. It took me a really long time to piece together his finances, his monthly incomes (military disability, pension, social security, etc) and his bills. Additionally, trying to piece together the monthly deposits and deductions out of his bank accounts was also a bit stressful. I became very adept at documenting EVERYTHING throughout the years I cared for him.. I also became very paranoid that I didn’t know half of the same information about my own finances. I had my husband draw up a document with all the important information as you’ve outlined. He updates it once a year for me. Additionally, I’ve kept a Family Manager binder for years with the kids’ info and general family info that we need to reference – school, church, medical, etc. These tools are invaluable. It sounds like you were “harassed” quite a bit on this subject, Andrea, but I am truly thankful that you’ve spent as much time on the subject as you have over your many posts. Repetition spurs action. 🙂
Andrea says
Thanks Kelly!
I wasn’t “harassed” but definitely kept getting more and more and more questions. So hopefully this post will clear everything AND motivate even more people to finally get their important paperwork in order now!
Chris from Normal says
I’m widowed and have heart failure so I’ve done this for my kids so they don’t have to search thru files-peace of mind-because I was always worried about “what if”.
I also put together a medical binder with dr. info, a list of my medications with directions and strengths, a pocket for my visit reports, and a copy of my medical records. I have the binder divided by categories
I have a household management binder for all the “other stuff”; a pet section, auto section etc. Whatever you need to keep track pf.
I’m a very organized person so gathering everything wasn’t that time consuming and I feel better knowing they only have to look in one spot for everything. I included the keys to my fire safe box and safety deposit box for the items that are noted to be there.
Lisa says
I used your printable and did this a few years ago. It has come in handy and whenever the tornado sirens sound, I just grab it and head to the basement!
Andrea says
good to know! I sure does feel good to know your affairs are “in order” whenever any sort of emergency arrises.
Jean says
I am in the midst of working on the estate of a sibling who passed 4 weeks ago. Oh my. I can’t tell you what a gift it is to your loved ones or personal representative if you leave them something like this. I only glanced at your lists — but would add that it is also helpful to include a list of accounts from which automatic withdrawals are made monthly (to reduce surprises or possibility of over-drawing an account). Also, a “digital” estate plan where you list user IDs, passwords, security questions, account numbers, etc. is helpful. I know people who could not get in to their spouse’s computers or phones when they passed because they did not know the “current” password.
I am learning many new things — for instance, you need to file the ORIGINAL will with the county you live in. If you have amendments to your will or trust — you need the originals of those documents too (even if they are superseded by a subsequent change). You can file copies — but then it is going to take longer (and more expense) for you to get the documents you require to manage the estate. You will need not only original death certificates (get one to start, review it for errors, then order more — surprisingly there may be errors in the first one you get) and for (some) banks you will need certification from the county you live in that you are the personal representative. You can’t get that document (which you also have to pay for the original and copies) until you file the will and the county does their part of the process.
You will have to contact the various banks and insurance companies and investment/retirement places. Each will send you (slowy) the forms and list of paperwork they require – which will dribble in over days/weeks – and each entity will require different things (but all want an original death certificate). This weekend when I was slogging through papers and forms I was thinking it is inherently wrong to have to grieve, do endless paperwork, look for documents, plan a party and send thank you notes — all at the same time! 🙂
Kellie Denton says
Hi Jean, I’m currently working on my dad’s estate but I ended up having to hire a big law firm for help because things were SO complicated. And yes if anyone is reading this could I just reiterate how HELPFUL a binder like this will be should you pass away! My dad has been gone 6 months and even with a good lawyer, I’m spending around 20 hours a week STILL on estate stuff. I’m sorry about your sister Jean…praying for comfort for you and your family.
Christine from The (mostly) Simple Life says
Love this! I have a set of index cards with much of the same information and it’s so nice to have. Of course, I have to remember to keep it updated 🙂 That’s the hard part.
Bev says
Thanks for giving us a peek into your binder Andrea! My kids also had a lot of savings bonds from a grandparent and I found the Savings Bond Wizard very helpful on the US Dept of Treasury (Treasury Direct) website. I think they have a Savings Bond Calculator for those with a Mac computer. It gave us a nice printout with all the info that made a great summary page to keep with all the bonds or in a binder like yours. It came in very handy when we were deciding which bonds to cash out when. Maybe you would like it too! And as someone who works in the legal industry, I always encourage people to make sure a loved one also knows where their estate planning or other important info is too, especially if you have labeled it “Family Vacation” or something. Making it hard for the bad guys to find might also result in family not being able to find it either in case of an emergency.
Mara Yager says
Thanks, Andrea!
Anna says
I ordered the same binder and put ours together earlier this year. It’s already been useful to me and now I see a few more documents I should add to it. I also added copies of our wills, powers of attorney, and advance healthcare directives to the personal section. Since I take care of all of our finances, I feel so much better knowing that my husband can pick this up and know what to do if something happens to me.
Andrea says
glad to hear! And yes, I know exactly what you mean about the peace of mind you feel once everything is organized.
Lisa says
Thank you so much for sharing in detail, this is awesome! What type of binder do you use and where can we purchase one?
Andrea says
I don’t have access to my computer or the links right now, but all that information is in the previous posts I’ve written about the binder. I linked to those posts in this post.