Fireproof safes are a MUST for anyone, especially if you have any firearms or important documents. The cost of the security outweigh the cost of not having the protection. Not only do safes provide protection from theft and fire, but they also provide protection from natural disasters. Liberty Safe has even survived a F4 tornado.
You want a great quality safe that is reliable. Because of this I use a Liberty Safe, and then keep a water-proof file box that is fire-proof rated for digital contents (CDs and DVDs) INSIDE of the Liberty Safe. Sure they will be a few thousand dollars, but over a life-time that is a very minimal expense. Some people think that you can just use a safety deposit box at a bank, but that is not true. Emergencies can happen at any time, and your bank likely isn’t open at 2:00 a.m.
What do you store in your safe? My recommendations are based on what will be the most beneficial to have immediately following a home fire or in an emergency. Most of the items on this list can actually be replaced, but having to replace them will cause you significant time and unnecessary stress. As a second component to the home fireproof box, I also recommend having a hard-drive stored at an off-site location.
Items I recommend you store in a home fireproof box:
* Current passport
* Birth certificate
* Social security card
* Property titles
* Insurance policies
* A list of bank and credit card account numbers
* Copies of prescriptions for life-supporting medications
* Spare keys to your car
Items I recommend you store digitally on a hard drive at a secure, off-site location:
* Scans of photo negatives and videos that you would be devastated to lose (like wedding photos and videos)
* Scans of your titles and insurance policies
* Scan of your Last Will and Testament
* Scans of your passport, birth certificate, and social security card
* Scans of prescriptions for your life-supporting medications
* A text file containing your bank and credit card account numbers
* A recent backup of important computer documents
* Photos of the interior and exterior of your home taken within the last four months
* Recent photos of your pets
Features for a home fireproof box
To properly store paper documents, you need a fireproof box with a temperature UL rating of at least 350 for 60 minutes. A rating of 350 and 60 minutes means that the inside of the fireproof box will not rise above 350 degrees during a fire reaching temperatures of 1,700 degrees lasting 60 minutes. Paper burns at 451 degrees, so you want the 350 rating for paper protection. If you live in an urban area close to a fire station, you can probably get by with a 30-minute fireproof box. If you’re in a rural area that is far from a fire station, I would bump the rating up to 120 minutes. The nice thing about having the file box inside of the larger Liberty Safe is that it is that much more protection.
Why, where and how to store backup copies of digital media
Digital hard drives should be kept at an off-site location. I make this recommendation for a couple reasons. Unfortunately, events like Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 attacks were reminders that you may leave your home and never return. Also, some fires are so severe that you may not be able to re-enter your house for days or weeks afterward. There is the morbid fact, too, that you may not survive the emergency. Having a digital hard drive stored outside of your home that is accessible 24 hours a day by you and/or a trusted friend or relative will guarantee that your most valuable information is safe and available in times of emergency.
I also strongly suggest that the hard drive be stored in a different region of the country from where you live. If your home is destroyed by a tornado/earthquake/hurricane, it is reasonable to assume that your neighbor’s home would be destroyed, too. For off-site storage, you can have a physical drive or you can have online data storage. The best thing to do would probably be to encrypt your data and upload the information to an online storage server. Some recommended ones are:
* Jungle Disk
* Amazon S3
* Mozy
* Carbonite
Be sure to give your username, password, and encryption key to a trusted friend or family member in a different region who will only access the information online if you are killed in an accident or if you make a request to access the information on your behalf. The downside to this option is that it has a continuous fee schedule.
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