Documents and Insurance: The Grab-and-Go File
Ask people who have lost a house what they wish they had taken, and the answers cluster oddly. Not furniture, not electronics. Photographs, and paperwork.
The paperwork matters because the six months after an event are administrative: proving who you are, what you owned, what you were insured for, and what medication you take. Every one of those is far harder without documents, and every one of them is trivially solvable in advance.
The 10-minute version
- Scan or photograph the set below and put it in encrypted cloud storage. Then a copy on a USB in the go-bag. Twenty minutes, once.
- Photograph every room with the cupboards open, and film a narrated walk-through. Insurers settle on evidence, and you cannot create evidence after the fact.
- Write down your insurer’s policy number and 24-hour claims line on paper. The one thing you will want in the first hour, and it lives in an email you cannot reach.
The document set
Identity
- Driver’s licence
- Passports
- Birth certificates
- Marriage or divorce documents, and any change-of-name papers
- Citizenship or visa documents
- Medicare card, concession and pension cards
Money
- Bank details: institution, BSB, account numbers
- Superannuation fund and member number
- Tax file number record
- Recent payslips or a Centrelink statement
- Loan and credit account details
Property
- Insurance policies — home, contents, car, health, life — with policy numbers and the 24-hour claims line
- Title deeds, mortgage documents, or the lease
- Rates notices
- Car registration and roadworthy documents
- Any warranties or receipts for high-value items
Health
- Current medication list with doses
- Prescriptions and repeat authorisations
- Immunisation records
- Specialist and GP contacts
- Advance care directive or power of attorney if you have one
- Pet vaccination records and microchip numbers
The irreplaceables
- Photographs — the ones not already digital
- Anything with no institutional copy: letters, a grandparent’s papers, a child’s drawings
Everything else has a copy somewhere. That last category does not, which is why it goes in the small box you decided on in advance.
How to store it so it survives
Three places, because any one of them can fail:
- Encrypted cloud storage. Survives fire, flood and theft, reachable from a borrowed phone. Use a service with two-factor authentication, and know the password without your phone.
- A USB in the go-bag. Works with no internet, which matters when the network is down. Encrypt it — a lost USB with your entire identity on it is its own emergency.
- Paper, in a document wallet in the go-bag. For the short list you would want in the first hour: policy numbers, medication list, contacts, and the plan.
What does not work: a folder on the laptop that lives in the house, a shoebox in the wardrobe, or a photo album nobody digitised.
For the paper you keep at home, a fireproof document box or safe helps against a small fire and does nothing against a total loss. It is a supplement to the cloud copy, never a substitute.
The photo inventory
This is the part that decides money, and it takes ten minutes.
- Wide shot from every corner of every room.
- Open every cupboard, wardrobe and drawer and photograph inside. The contents are what a contents policy covers.
- Close-ups of anything valuable — jewellery, tools, instruments, appliances, art — including serial numbers where visible.
- A narrated video walk-through, saying what things are and roughly when you bought them.
- The garage, shed and roof space.
- Upload it all, and re-do it once a year.
Insurers pay on evidence. After an event you cannot generate evidence of what existed, and “we had a lot of tools in the shed” is not a claim. A ten-minute video is.
What actually goes wrong
Everything is on the laptop, and the laptop is in the house.
The cloud account password is in the password manager on the phone that is now dead. Know one password from memory.
No photo inventory, so the contents claim becomes a memory test conducted while grieving.
The policy number is in an email, and the email needs the network that is down.
Documents are scanned once and never updated — expired passports, an old insurer, a medication list from four years ago.
The USB is not encrypted, so losing it is an identity-theft event.
Nobody else in the house can get to any of it. Two people should know where and how.
Thresholds
| Situation | The rule |
|---|---|
| Setting up | Cloud copy, encrypted USB in the go-bag, short paper list |
| Cloud password | Known from memory, not only in a password manager |
| Photo inventory | Every room, cupboards open, plus a narrated video |
| Policy details | Number and 24-hour claims line on paper in the go-bag |
| Review | Annually, and after any renewal, move, birth or new insurer |
| Anything with no institutional copy | Into the small irreplaceables box, decided in advance |
| Who knows | At least two people in the household |
What it costs
| Tier | Spend | What it buys |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Phone camera, existing cloud storage, a manila folder, the photo inventory. This is the whole job |
| Solid | ~$30–60 | An encrypted USB drive and a document wallet for the go-bag |
| Better | ~$120–300 | A fireproof document box, and a paid cloud plan with proper two-factor and version history |
| Worth checking | $0 | Whether your contents sum insured is anywhere near what the video shows you own. Under-insurance is extremely common |
That last row is the highest-value five minutes in this article. Most households have not revisited their sum insured since they took the policy out.
The drill: the twenty-minute file
- Five minutes. Photograph the identity and health documents. Licence, passports, Medicare, medication list.
- Five minutes. Photograph the property and money documents. Insurance policies, lease or title, bank details, super.
- Five minutes. Walk the house filming a narrated video, opening cupboards as you go.
- Three minutes. Upload everything to cloud storage in a dated folder. Copy to an encrypted USB and put it in the go-bag.
- Two minutes. Write the short paper list — policy numbers, claims line, medication, contacts — and put it in the go-bag with the plan.
Then set an annual reminder, and tell one other person where all of it is.
Frequently asked questions
What documents should I have in an emergency kit?
Identity documents (licence, passports, birth certificates), insurance policies with claims numbers, bank and super details, the lease or title, a current medication list and prescriptions, and pet records. Scanned to the cloud, on an encrypted USB, plus a short paper list.
How should I store emergency documents?
In three places: encrypted cloud storage, an encrypted USB in the go-bag, and a short paper list for the first hour. A folder on a laptop inside the house is the one arrangement that reliably fails.
Why does a photo inventory matter so much?
Because insurers settle contents claims on evidence, and you cannot create evidence after a loss. Ten minutes of photographs with cupboards open, plus a narrated video, is worth thousands.
Is a fireproof safe worth it?
As a supplement, yes; as your only copy, no. It may survive a small fire and will not survive a total loss or a flood. The cloud copy is the one that always works.
How often should I update the file?
Annually, and whenever you renew insurance, move, change insurer or have a baby. Also re-shoot the photo inventory each year — households accumulate more than people expect.
What should go in the irreplaceables box?
Only things with no institutional copy: undigitised photographs, letters, family papers, children’s artwork. Everything else can be reissued, which is exactly why deciding this in advance stops people going back for objects.