Saving Family Documents and Treasures

My husband and I recently got a safety deposit bank at a local bank in which to store our important documents, such as our social security cards, passports, marriage certificate and family birth certificates. I feel better that the documents are somewhere for safekeeping – I also have backup Xeroxed copies of those documents at home so I know what is stored in the safe deposit box.

Having the documents in the safe deposit box makes me feel a little more secure, since before, the documents were stored in a haphazard fashion here and there in our home. Plus, I have a friend who lost much of her belongings in a home fire a few years ago, so preserving important family documents and treasures is always in mind. I hope to at one point add a CD of family photos to my safe deposit box.

Here are steps you can take to safely store important documents, photos and other treasures:

Think about a safe deposit box: I found this useful list online of items that are best stored in a safe deposit box: "What Belongs in Your Safe Deposit Box?" The plus of a safe deposit box is that you can keep important personal documents in one place, the boxes are made to be fire and flood resistant, and they will be stored under the watchful eye of the bank. (However, the FDIC recommends storing items in plastic bags or plastic containers in safe deposit boxes to further protect items.) A drawback to keep in mind is that you will only have access to your safe deposit box during bank hours, so you won’t want to put anything there that you would need in a hurry. (So, because of that reason, Bankrate.com recommends against keeping a will in a safe deposit box.)

If you do get a safe deposit box (which can be rented from most local banks), make sure that a trusted friend or family member knows where the box is and has access to the key in case of an emergency. It’s also smart to keep an inventory of what’s in the box and photocopies of the documents that you have stored in the box.

Consider a fireproof safe: The items in your safe deposit box won’t be covered by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC), so, if you are worried about that, you might want to opt for a fireproof safe (that you can keep in your home) instead. Of course, you would want to make sure that your items are covered by insurance in the case of fire, theft, flood, etc. The plus of a fireproof safe is that you will have easier access to it (compared to a safe deposit box), but a minus is that you have less security (than you would have with a safe deposit box), since a safety deposit bank will be watched over by a bank, whereas only you (and perhaps your home-security provider) can look out for a safe’s protection at home. Items in safe deposit boxes are rarely stolen, thanks to the concrete or steel vaults they are kept in and banks’ security measures and cameras, etc., says the FDIC. (The FDIC includes safety precautions to follow when using a safe deposit box on the FDIC website.)

Safeguard family photos: Many of us have our family photos stored on computers that can crash or in our homes, where they could be susceptible to flooding or fire. So, it’s smart to backup your photos so that if disaster did strike, you won’t lose important family memories.

If you do rent a safe deposit box, you can store photos (as prints or on a CD) there. Or, you can backup your photos online, using several online photo services. Or, think about this relatively low-tech way of backing up your photos: Make duplicate copies of photo albums and photo CDs and give them to trusted family members and friends for safekeeping. That way, should something happen to your photos, you can make extra copies from the prints or digital copies that were kept safe by friends and family.