What Important Documents Should Be in Your Go Bag?

When people build a go bag, they usually remember flashlights, snacks, and chargers first. Documents tend to get left until later, even though they are some of the hardest things to replace quickly in an emergency. The document pouch is one of the most important and practical parts of your go bags.

If you need to leave quickly, documents can help with identification, insurance claims, health needs, school pickups, travel, banking, and communication. You may not need every document right away, but having copies of the most important ones can make the days after an emergency much easier to manage.

What documents to include:

• Government photo ID
  
• Health card information or scan (front and back)
• insurance policies and account details
• Emergency contact list
• Medication list and prescription information
• Passports
• Wills or key legal documents
• Recent utility bill or proof of address if useful
• Pet records

A good setup uses both paper and digital copies. Paper copies are useful when your phone is dead, service is disrupted, or you need to hand over information quickly. Digital copies are useful if your bag is lost or you are away from home. A simple system would be to keep paper copies inside of a waterproof pouch inside of your go bag, digital copies stored securely and accessible from your phone or on your cloud account, one quick review each season to replace outdated documents.

Make sure to keep health information easy to find, so things like your medication list, prescription details, allergies, doctor and pharmacy contact information, and emergency contact information should be accessible in your go bag as well.

Make sure to keep your document pouch near the top of your bag and in a waterproof sleeve to ensure that it is easily accessible and does not get damaged. This also makes it easy for another household member to find in case you are not the one retrieving the information.

Important documents are one of the least flashy but most useful parts of a go bag. A document pouch will not solve every problem, but it can save time, reduce stress, and make the recovery side of an emergency much easier.