PaperOrg · Free checklist

If you had to leave in five minutes

The documents every household should be able to find without looking. Half an hour, once, and it is done.

How to use this

Work in one sitting. Do not tidy anything, do not rename anything, do not start a filing system. For each line, answer one question honestly.

Could I put my hand on this in five minutes, right now, without asking anyone?

What the three boxes on each line mean

Somewhere is the answer that catches people out. In an emergency it behaves exactly like no, and it is the most common answer on this whole list. That is why it gets its own box.
Tier 1

Who you are, and your right to be here

The ones you would grab if the house were on fire.

  • Passport, every person, plus each expiry date
  • National ID card, where your country issues one
  • Residence permit or visa, and its renewal date
  • Birth certificates
  • Marriage, partnership or divorce papers
  • Driving licence
  • Social security or national insurance number
  • Children: their ID, and consent to travel
The one people miss: the expiry dates. Having the passport is not the same as knowing it runs out seven weeks before the trip you just booked.
Tier 2

Cover

The documents that decide whether an accident costs you nothing or costs you everything.

  • Health insurance card and policy number
  • Home insurance policy, and what it actually covers
  • Car insurance and the registration document
  • Life insurance, and the named beneficiary
  • Liability insurance, where you hold it
  • Travel insurance, standalone or via a bank card
  • Emergency claim numbers for each of the above
The one people miss: the claim phone number. The policy is filed neatly and the number you need at 2am was on a letter nobody kept.
Tier 3

Your home

  • Deed, or the tenancy agreement
  • Mortgage agreement and lender contact
  • Land registry extract
  • Utility contracts: power, gas, water, internet
  • Photographs of the contents, for a claim
  • Where the stopcock, fuse box and gas valve are
The one people miss: the inventory. Nobody photographs their own house until after the thing they needed the photographs for.
Tier 4

Health

  • Vaccination records, everyone, including the children
  • Repeat prescriptions and dosages
  • Allergies and conditions, written for a stranger to act on
  • Doctor, dentist and any specialist, with numbers
  • Organ donor registration, if you have one
  • Advance directive or living will, if you have one
The one people miss: writing the allergies somewhere a paramedic could read without you.
Tier 5

If the worst happens

Uncomfortable, quick, and the single kindest hour of admin you will ever do for the people you live with.

  • Will, and where the signed original is held
  • Power of attorney, medical and financial
  • Bank accounts: which bank, what kind, not the passwords
  • Pensions and investments
  • Outstanding loans
  • Subscriptions that would keep charging
  • Funeral wishes, if you have them
Never write passwords on this list. A list of accounts is useful to your family. A list of passwords is useful to whoever finds it.
If you moved country

The paperwork nobody warns you about

  • Residence permit, and the renewal window
  • Registration with your local authority
  • Tax registration in both countries
  • Pension entitlements left behind
  • Health cover in both countries, and the gap
  • Recognition of qualifications and diplomas
  • Certified translations of birth and marriage certificates
  • School records and transcripts for the children
Cross-border households carry roughly double the documents and none of the institutional memory. This is the tier that goes wrong quietly, years later.

Where to keep it

One place, not five. Split between a drawer, a shoebox, a cloud folder and an email account means it is in none of them when you need it.

Someone else can get to it. If only you can find it, you have not solved the problem. You have become the problem.

The copies survive the house. Paper burns and floods. Whatever you keep physically, keep readable copies somewhere else too.

Answer as you go

Tick a box on each line and this page keeps the count for you. Somewhere counts against you, because in an emergency it behaves exactly like no.

Fix the top five. Leave the rest. Five is genuinely enough to change what happens on a bad day.

Made by the people building PaperOrg, a private paperwork assistant for families, couples, expats and households. Keep this list whether or not you ever use our product. It works on its own.

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