Storing Important Documents Best Practices for Physical and Electronic Storage of Identification, Health Records, Legal Documents and More

Life goes a lot easier if you keep important documents such as your passport, birth certificate, and vaccination records handy, but there isn’t one “right” way to store them. You know your needs and life circumstances best, so use the “whys” of storage to inform the “how.” Examples of whys could be:

• General storage solution
• Easy “grab and go” in a high-risk disaster area
• Electronic storage to cut down on paper
• Protection against fire and water
• Protection against theft
• For legal processes after your death
• Preservation of longtime family documents and photos for future generations

The best practices mix physical storage (a safe, safe deposit box, etc.), the cloud, and a thumb drive/external hard drive. This guide explains which documents to keep and takes you through the various storage options.

Table of Contents

• View from the Experts
• Documents to Keep
• 7 Best Practices for Document Storage
• Physical Storage
• Electronic Storage
• Additional Resources
• References and Footnotes

Documents to Keep

Many people keep their important documents in a safe or locked filing cabinet and only think about them when they are needed. However, if you live in an area that could be evacuated due to a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or forest fire, you must take a more proactive approach to keeping important documents. The major documents for your family to keep, especially if you are fleeing a disaster, include these:

• Driver’s licenses
• Birth certificates
• Lists of medications you’re taking, any conditions you have, and medical equipment you use
• Vaccination records
• Social Security cards
• Passports
• Adoption papers
• Citizenship papers
• Marriage, divorce, and child custody papers
• Military ID and military discharge paperwork
• A list of each type of insurance coverage, the policy number, and contact details
• Inventory of household possessions

If you have pets, it’s a good idea to keep records related to vaccinations and ID chips. Saving recent pictures of your pets can also be useful, but you’re probably regularly taking those anyway.

While some of these important documents can be digitized for convenience, anything related to your or someone else's identity should not be digitized. These documents are highly valuable, and losing them could ruin your life if they fall into the wrong hands. Documents like adoption papers and marriage certificates are also important because they show legal status or relationships between people.

Otherwise, the important documents to keep generally fall into seven categories.

Legal identification and vital records

1. • Birth certificates
   • Passports
   • Adoption paperwork
   • Social Security cards
   • Citizenship documents (green card, naturalization paperwork, etc.)
   • Driver’s license
   • Military ID

These documents are essential to proving your identity, and conducting all kinds of important legal transactions.

2. Tax Documents (Past Three to Seven Years)

• Tax returns
• W-2s and 1099 forms
• Receipts for donations
• Healthcare expenditures
• Property tax records
• New homeowner documents
• Annual mortgage statement
• Past tax filings

For most people, the IRS recommends keeping at least the past three years’ worth of tax documents. However, the federal tax agency also recommends that people with complex tax filings should consider storing all of their tax paperwork and definitely. Keeping these text documents can help protect you in the event of an audit. The IRS also recommends keeping records related to or loss from ortho securities or a bad debt deduction for seven years.¹

3. Medical Records

• Vaccination/immunization records
• Personal health history that includes medications you’re taking
• Any personal care plans such as an asthma action plan or food allergy and anaphylaxis care plan²
• Health insurance policies (at least a list of each type of coverage, the policy number and contact details)
• Living wills, wills, powers of attorney, burial instructions
• Medical bills

While saving many of these documents isn’t important for legal reasons, your personal health history (also called personal medical history) gives an overview of your medical conditions, the treatment you’re receiving for them, and how effectively they’re being controlled. It also outlines critical information such as past hospitalizations, surgeries, and accidents. Johns Hopkins Medicine also suggests retaining a family health history, doctor visit summaries, test results, and insurance forms, among others.³

4. Estate Planning

• Prenuptial agreements
• Wills
• Trusts
• Funeral/burial instructions
• Powers of attorney
• Attorney names and phone numbers

Estate planning isn't just something for people to do later in life. Unfortunately, people pass away far too early, far too often. Therefore, people in their 30s and even in their late 20s should consider some type of estate planning. As you get older, your estate plans will likely become more complex, but it's never a bad thing to start early.

In addition to saving important documents like power of attorney documents, it's also important to make sure these documents can be found when the time comes. Barring a highly effective séance, you won’t be available to tell your heirs where your various estate documents can be found after you’ve passed.

Many people keep a “master list” that includes the locations of all important estate documents. AARP has an example you can tailor to your needs. Since this list contains a lot of sensitive information, it must also be securely stored. A home safe is one option. Alternatively, you can digitize the list and keep it on a thumb drive. Just make sure someone else knows about it and can access it if need be.

5. Property Records

• Rental or lease agreements
• Mortgage statements, bills, deeds of sale
• Two-page settlement statement from title company showing house cost and purchase expenses
• Vehicle, boat, or RV registrations and titles
• Insurance policies
• List of household inventory (include videos and photos as needed)

Property records are necessary for a wide range of transactions. They’re also critical is your property is hit by a natural disaster. If you live in an area that is vulnerable to major storms or forest fires, have a way to take property records with you when you evacuate.

6. Financial

• List of each financial account (savings, checking, CD, credit card, retirement, etc.), account numbers, and institutions. You may want to include account usernames and passwords
• Pay stubs
• Canceled checks
• Disability or unemployment records
• Retirement/pension plan records
• Investment statements

Many of these are already digital, which lessens the amount of physical paperwork to deal with. However, you should be storing digital financial information securely, just as you would paper documents.

For some of these documents, you’re fine keeping just the previous year’s documentation, for example, one year’s worth of pay stubs, canceled checks, and monthly retirement/investment statements. Once you get your yearly investment summary, dispose of the monthly statements. Keep yearly statements for as long as you have the account. If you close an account, you should continue to save statements for an additional seven years.

Store anything that pertains to taxes, including canceled checks and unemployment records, for at least three years. Save seven years if you have a somewhat complex tax filing, i.e. more than just a basic 1040 form.

7. Legal/Personal/Family/Other

• List of where documents are stored
• Legal documents not covered above
• Usernames and passwords for online accounts
• Valuable or sentimental photos and letters
• Family history documents
• Fingerprints and dental records

There’s a lot of discretion in this category. For instance, you may not want to store fingerprint and dental records—that’s fine. Likewise, family photos might not interest you. The five items listed are just examples. The point is: you should have a way to store the documents that are important to you on a personal or sentimental level.

7 Best Practices for Storing Important Documents

Now that you know which documents you need to keep and for how long, it's important to also understand the best practices for keeping those documents and files safely tucked away. There's no need for complex or expensive security measures. A bit of common sense and some foresight can go a long way. There are also a few missteps you should try to avoid.

If you have a lot of important documents, you might feel the need to keep everything securely in the same place. Putting all of your important papers and USB drives in a safe or safe deposit box means you don't have to go all over town trying to find the papers you need.

However, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. Even if you don't live in a hurricane zone or area that's prone to natural disasters, there's a big risk in putting everything in one place. For example, if you keep all of your important documents in a safe deposit box at your bank, those documents could be lost if the bank starts on fire and burns to the ground.

If you have digital files, consider storing them both in the cloud and on a thumb drive. For paper documents, there are some types that you should get copies of and store in a separate location. For example, you may want to have an extra copy of any citizenship papers or other documents related to legal status. You should probably avoid making or getting copies of personally identifying documents, such as a Social Security card or birth certificate because the potential for identity theft is high if these documents fall into the wrong hands.

Good document storage includes good disposal. After all, any document sitting in a garbage can is at risk. Shred the documents you’re disposing of, be they ATM receipts, bank statements, copies of your birth certificate, credit card bills, legal paperwork, property transactions, medical records, password lists, or utility bills. If you don’t own a shredder (or even if you do), many communities hold document shred days at the same time as drug takeback days. Many office stores offer document shredding, too.

If you’re selling, giving away, recycling, or donating a computer, conduct a hard drive wipe. A factory reset isn’t quite secure enough.

Similarly, Apple support explains what to do before you give away, sell, or trade-in your device. You have several options for Android devices, too (read up on Google tips).

Physical Storage

You have many different options when it comes to protecting original documents more hard copies of important digital files. These include fire-resistant safes, safety deposit boxes, and filing cabinets. As we've noted, it's important to store important physical documents in multiple places. It's also important to use portable storage if you live in an area that's prone to natural disasters. You should also avoid storing a living will or durable power of attorney in a safe deposit box.

Fire-resistant, water-resistant safe (portable)

Good, all-around storage solution

• Offers protection against fires, floods, and water leaks
• Good solution for general document storage
• Some safes have room for hanging file folders
• Can be well-hidden
• Offers some protection against prying eyes and theft

As Nick Guy with Wirecutter explains, “Document safes are meant to provide protection from fire, water, and to a degree, theft, for people who wish to keep important belongings safe in an office or at home. They’re best for important documents—such as passports or birth certificates—or small items like hard drives or USB sticks. Most people can find good use for a fireproof safe, whether they want to be ready for travel or major financial transactions or just want to add an extra layer of safety for a drive full of treasured photos.”⁴

Going further, Larry McKenna with the U.S. Fire Administration advises, “Get the best [safe] you can afford.”

• The Honeywell 1104 performs great and costs about $125. It should keep your documents intact for up to an hour in temperatures as high as 1,700 °F. It also keeps water out for 24 hours (important since water is used to put out fire). This safe is about the width of a mini-refrigerator and weighs 56 pounds. It doesn’t use a digital keypad, instead requiring a physical key. Replacement keys are available from Honeywell if your original gets lost or damaged.
• If you have a lot of documents or prioritize organization, another option is the Honeywell 1108. It holds hanging file folders but is a bear to move at 80 pounds. It also costs more, at $160.
• Some safes such as the First Alert 2037F and First Alert 2602DF are rated to protect your documents for only 30 minutes in a fire up to 1,550 °F. They cost about $50 to $60 less than their Honeywell counterparts but take up less space. Go with higher UL ratings (Underwriters Laboratory ratings) unless money and space are huge factors.
• Place your safe in the basement, if possible, so it doesn’t fall through floors during a fire.

You probably noticed that we're recommending a portable safe and thought: If my safe is portable, can't a thief just walk away with it? Once a thief gets your safe back to their lair, they have all the time in the world to crack it open using whatever means necessary. This might sound like something out of a cartoon, but it actually happened in the UK to world-renowned soccer manager Carlo Ancelotti, who had his safe stolen out of his home in 2021. The safe was recovered, but it was cracked open and the contents were gone.

There are a couple of things you can do to prevent your safe from being stolen. The first is to keep it hidden in a way that's effective but practical. Put it in your basement behind some storage bins, for example. If you do something extreme like burying it in the backyard, you'll have to dig it up when it's time to evacuate. The second step to preventing your safe from walking away is to anchor it to a wall or the floor. This makes your portable safe much less portable, but anchoring it down forces burglars to spend more time trying to get it out of your house, which is exactly what they don't want to do.

You have a few options to take document protection one step further. One is to use plastic page slips to safeguard against wear and tear, liquid spills, or sunlight (mostly for when the documents are outside of the safe). You can even put these documents in a three-ring binder for quicker escape in case of a disaster—more on this soon.

Another option is to keep the documents in fire- and water-resistant bags inside the safe. The bags themselves offer fire and water protection but not as much as a safe. Still, when combined, they provide another layer of defense. They’re also easy to grab for a quick exit before a disaster hits.

Three-ring binder with plastic sleeves

Portability during emergencies or disasters

• Extremely portable in disaster scenarios
• Can combine with other storage options such as a safe
• Good for organization
• No security against theft and prying eyes
• Not the safest long-term solution

Binders are easy to include in grab-and-go bags (also called go-bags or bug-out bags). If your area is likely to be evacuated soon for, say, a hurricane, fire or earthquake, insert your most important documents into the binder sleeves. They’re ready to go in a hurry.

Don’t feel comfortable keeping documents in a go-bag? Combine the binder with a safe for easy transfer to a go-bag.

Filing Cabinet

Good for many types of financial and legal documents

• Locks provide some theft protection
• Lots of space for bigger documents, including financial
• Most filing cabinets don’t offer water and fire resistance, but some do

As its name suggests, a filing cabinet is best for filing paperwork and less useful for keeping documents secure. While they offer significant space and organization, you may be better off with other types of storage. For example, an external hard drive can store hundreds of thousands of more files than a filing cabinet, and there’s less physical paperwork to manage. However, if you have papers that are tax-related or that aren’t personally identifying documents, a filing cabinet is perfectly fine.

Many filing cabinets are not fire- and water-resistant. Some are, though—you just have to make a point to buy them. (Don’t expect the first filing cabinet you see at your local office supply store to be fire-resistant.) Check the UL rating and the ETL Electronic Media rating. Although, if you are going to invest in a robust filing cabinet, you might be better off just getting a safe or other kind of physical storage that offers better protection.

Other Options (to use with Caution)

The following solutions are not necessarily best practices, but they’re common enough. In some situations, they even make perfect sense. Just know what you’re potentially getting into.

Fake, Hollow Book

• Don’t count on it for water and fire resistance
• Primary focus may be decoration, not security
• Extremely versatile and portable

Some fake books are hollow, with no locking mechanism. Others have locks and somewhat double as safes. Either type lets you store important documents in plain sight, whether the fake book is in your bedroom, office, or college dorm room.

Fake books are extremely portable but don’t expect them to protect your documents in a fire or flood. Burglars can spot them easily enough, too.

Fire-Resistant, Water-Resistant Non-Portable Safe

• Focus is anti-theft, with document storage secondary
• Large and can be a hassle to install
• Potential overkill just for document storage
• Offers protection against fires, floods, and water leaks

Many non-portable safes such as wall safes, hidden safes, and anchored safes offer fire and water resistance but double-check the safe’s UL rating. You want a minimum of 30 minutes’ protection in a fire up to 1,550 °F.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with non-portable safes, per se. They’re just not necessary if you’re looking for a document storage solution. Go portable for more versatility and less hassle.

Another thing: Many non-portable safes can be carried out of your home by determined burglars. They’re not as secure as you might think. Try to store your documents separately from high-value items.

Indoor self-storage units

• Questionable fire, water, and pest resistance
• Requires payment
• Access may be available only during regular business hours
• Could work for some types of business document storage
• Lots of space for family documents, photos, and books
• Climate-controlled storage is an option

Self-storage may make sense if you have a large number of business documents or family photos and documents. Find a climate-controlled unit, and make backup digital copies of anything you don’t want to lose.

Cloud Storage

• Good for business, financial, and sentimental documents
• Less paper
• Easily accessible
• Vulnerable to data breaches

First things first: Don’t use cloud storage to keep digital copies of your birth certificate, Social Security card and other identifying information. (If you must have digital copies, go with thumb drives or external hard drives.)

That said, cloud storage is a smart solution for many document types, especially if you run a business. You reduce the amount of paper kept around and can access cloud files from anywhere as long as you have an internet connection. Fire, water, theft and the like are less of a concern but take the appropriate cybersecurity protocols.

Cloud storage is a good choice for documents that are important because they’re sentimental. For instance, you might have too many old newspaper clippings, grade school certificates, and family photos to keep in your home. A common option is to use a mobile scanning app for scanning and uploading to the cloud (plus an external hard drive). Put the physical originals in storage, give them to someone who wants them or even dispose of them.⁹

Device Storage (on a Phone, Computer or Tablet)

• Good for business and sentimental files
• Very portable during emergencies or disasters
• High risk

Device storage is arguably the simplest digital solution of them all, maybe beating even email. Use your phone or tablet to take a photo of a document and keep the copy right on the device.

This method may be necessary during disasters but don’t use it as a long-term solution. It’s easy enough for your files and photos to fall into the wrong hands via theft, loss, hacking, or even just a nosy acquaintance. At all times, secure your smartphone the best you can.

• Dropping your phone or laptop could render your copies no good.
• There’s a chance that your files are being synced or backed up (without your knowledge) to a cloud service that isn’t secure enough.
• It’s possible your files are stored on a memory card instead of on the device. The card might not be password-protected, especially if you didn’t realize sensitive information was stored on it.

Device storage is not as risky when the device in question is your computer that stays put. It never goes out; it never leaves home. A hard drive crash could still destroy your documents, though. Either way, password-protect your folders and use encryption software to safeguard against malware.

Email

• Good for important daily documents
• Portable and accessible
• Vulnerable to various types of cyber attacks

Email is perhaps the simplest method of electronic storage but it isn’t too secure. Scan a document or take a picture of it and email the file to yourself.⁸

If you’re going with this approach, secure your devices and email account. Anyone who gets into your account could potentially have access to your driver’s license number, Social Security number, and other information.

Try not to use email for long-term document storage. There are too many ways it could go wrong, but email does come in handy during emergencies. Set strong, unique locks/passwords, and feel free to use a password manager.

In Conclusion: Storing Important Documents

Ordinarily, you don’t get important documents all at once. Rather, they come in trickles, with one or two documents here and there over the years. You may also need to store your children’s (and spouse’s and pets’) documents. It’s easy to lose track of all these items and their locations. A master list outlining these locations helps, but be sure to store the list securely, too.

Best practices involve physical storage in addition to thumb drive/external hard drive storage and the cloud. You may need to keep your most important documents portable in case you leave home quickly.

References and Footnotes

1. How Long Should I Keep Records? (Updated 2020, May 28). Internal Revenue Service. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/how-long-should-i-keep-records
2. Personal Health: Paperwork. (2020, April 13). Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.cdc.gov/cpr/prepareyourhealth/Paperwork.htm
3. Medical Records: Getting Organized. (n.d.). Johns Hopkins Medicine. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/medical-records-getting-organized
4. The Best Fireproof Document Safe. (Updated 2020, January 03). Wirecutter. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-fireproof-document-safe/
5. Gadgets to keep your private life (and prized possessions) secure. (2017, Jul 6). Popular Science. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.popsci.com/security-products-safes-for-documents-valuables/
6. Cowley, S. (2019, July 19). Safe Deposit Boxes Aren't Safe. The New York Times. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html
7. Should You Keep Your Will at Your Lawyer's Office? (2019, May 10). Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.daytonestateplanninglaw.com/keep-will-at-lawyers-office/
8. Hodge, R. (2020, July 28). Help Yourself Recover Missing Documents after a Disaster. CNET. Retrieved August 04, 2020, from https://www.cnet.com/how-to/help-yourself-recover-missing-documents-after-a-disaster/
9. Biersdorfer, J.D. (2020, April 01). How to Digitize Your Most Important Documents. The New York Times. Retrieved August 05, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/technology/personaltech/digitizing-important-documents.html