PSA: Backing Up Yourself

[crokett]

I was at the bank today dropping some things off in our safe deposit box and there was a woman there who'd had a house fire and lost basically all her forms of ID. She was trying to get the mess unraveled and get access to her money, except she needed the IDs she didn't have. When I left she was working with the bank manager to figure things out.

I keep one old license for myself and my wife in our safe deposit box along with our passports and SS cards. This way, if the house burns down at least with the state it is much easier to get a replacement license, and from there everything else becomes a lot easier.

If you don't have a box, keep things like this offsite somewhere if you can, or at least get one of the home fire safes.

[BobSch]

Thanks for the reminder, David. I'm going to have to stop at the bank and see just what we've got squirelled away in our SDB. I think I'll take both our expired licenses along and add them to the stash.

[crokett]

I forgot to add, keep proof of current address there too, if the one on your expired license isn't current.

[os1kne]

Great idea! My wife just had to renew her DL and I was about to shred it. I need to renew my DL this summer. Time to update to home inventory / SDB info. Thanks!

[mclear6]

We have our passports and old licenses as well as other important documents in our "fire-proof" safe. I just hope they extinguish the fire before the safe goes.

[MilDoc]

All ours are in a bolted down home fire safe, UL listed as safe from 4 hrs at 4,000 degrees. As long as a volcano doesn't hit .....

[Slik Geek]

Whenever I have renewed my IL driver's license, they retain the old one and cut it up.