5 Ways to Safely Store Your Personal Information

If you died today, would your loved ones be able to easily find all your critical legal, personal, and financial documents? This is a common problem for many families, already in the throes of grief, who realize they don’t have a clue where to locate the necessary information needed after a death.

A survey conducted by Quicken revealed that 75% of respondents don’t consider their essential information well organized, and 92% said that when searching themselves, they had trouble finding it.

Another sad fact is that over half of U.S. adults lack essential estate-planning documents such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney, or advanced directives. This often leads to unpleasant surprises for families who then face an unexpectedly difficult task of sorting out an estate.

So, as a loving gift to your family, getting your affairs in order now via thorough estate planning makes sense. Then, what are some best practices for organizing and storing that information? Here are four options.

Delegate to a Person

You can designate an attorney, bank, executor, or family member to store the documents securely. The best way to pursue this option is to have a signed agreement in which the person or institution certifies acceptance of their responsibilities and agrees to honor wishes upon death. If it’s an attorney, a bank, or another professional institution, there will be fees for this service. However, if it’s a friend or family member, they may agree to do so at no cost.

The risks of this alternative vary with the person or institution you choose. An attorney or bank will probably be less risky than delegating the task to a non-professional family member. They typically have established procedures for securely handling your documents but may also pose bureaucratic hurdles for your family in obtaining them at the time of death. Delegating to a family member would probably make it easier to access the documents, but you’ll need to make sure they store them safely.

Store at Home

Many people find comfort in storing their personal and financial information and documents at home because of the ease of access. While this is the most convenient and potentially cost-efficient storage method, it carries risks, such as forgetting where the information is stored in the home and the possibility of theft, fire, or natural disasters.

To reduce the risks of home storage, consider acquiring a safe or other secure container. These can range from a personal fire safe, usually sold in office supply stores, to a more substantial one, such as a long-gun safe. In choosing a safe, check the fire rating. A poorly insulated container is less likely to protect the documents during a substantial fire. When installing a safe, consider models that can be bolted to a floor or wall to reduce the risk of theft.

Finally, make sure to inform a trusted person, such as a spouse or another family member, where this information is stored and how to access the container. It will be an expensive headache if your family must hire a locksmith to open it.

Store in a Safe Deposit Box

Another popular option for document storage is a safe deposit box. This is a good choice from a safety perspective since it is usually housed in a professionally secured facility with controlled access. While the safety level is high, there are fees involved. Depending on geographic location, annual rental fees can range from $15 to $150 for popular-sized boxes.

A major downside of a safe deposit box is the convenience of access. For example, access to a box at a local bank branch will be limited to the branch's hours of operation, which rarely include evenings, weekends, or holidays. Also, many banks are phasing out safe deposit boxes as fewer bricks-and-mortar branches remain with the growth of digital banking.

Some tips for using a safe deposit box for important documents include:

• Rent the box jointly with another person so they can access your documents if you are not able.
• Make sure to rent a box big enough to hold all the necessary documents.
• Keep a second set of important documents in an easily accessible location in case of emergency.

Go Digital

A modern alternative for storing important documents and other information is to save it digitally on your computer or “in the cloud.” The advantage of digital storage is that the information is available 24/7/365 and makes documents easier to edit.

There are also several disadvantages of digital storage:

• Paper-only documents must be scanned to get digital copies.
• Digital data is vulnerable to accidents or malicious behavior.

To protect digital data, it must be stored both securely and redundantly. Security best practices include password protection, encryption, authentication checkpoints, and network firewalls. Redundancy means multiple backup copies must be stored in multiple secure locations so the data can be restored in case of emergency.

Taking these precautions on a home computer alone is possible, but often beyond the average user's capabilities. Another alternative is what could be called a virtual safe deposit box or virtual vault. These are secure digital repositories that are set up in a cloud environment and accessible via the internet.

Examples of these are:

These options provide secure digital storage for legal, financial, medical, and personal information and allow designated family members to access it as needed. Some offer the digital vault as an adjunct to their main offerings, such as online estate planning. One of the biggest advantages of these digital vaults is that they help users organize important information, so they don't overlook anything or prepare documents incorrectly.

When considering storage options for critical personal information, assess them for comprehensiveness, convenience, security, and cost to find the solution that best fits your unique situation.

Legal appointments, document storage tools, and home office supplies can help you organize important information for the people who may need it someday. The Visa Signature Credit Card offers a convenient way to pay while providing valuable card benefits.