Natural disasters happen everywhere. In the South it’s hurricanes; in the Mid-West tornados. The East suffers from flooding and the West fights out-of-control wild fires and earthquakes. There is no place in the US that’s safe from some kind of natural disaster.
The devastation that comes with a natural disaster is usually wide-spread. For example, Hurricane Katrina wiped out entire communities along the Louisiana/Mississippi Coast and caused billions of dollars worth of damage as far East as the Alabama/Florida border.
As devastating as a disaster like Hurricane Katrina can be, it’s hard to believe that people would make it worse. But they do. Opportunists find natural disasters – especially those that are wide reaching – to be the perfect cover for crimes like theft or identity theft.
For you, that means there’s more to worry about than just the disaster you may be facing in the future. You also need to be concerned with security measures, like protecting your identity. And to be sure you’re protected, you should prepare for a disaster long before it happens.
Protect Your Identity Before Disaster Strikes
The best time to plan to protect yourself is before something goes terribly wrong. If you wait until a disaster is happening, you’ll find yourself in reactive mode; reacting after the fact to damages that might have been preventable. Instead, create an identity protection plan as part of your disaster preparedness plan.
An identity protection plan should include an assessment of how you could be at risk, a list of what paperwork and documents you’ll need, and a clear understanding of who is in charge of security that information if you need to evacuate because of a disaster.
Assessing Your Risk for Identity Theft
After an earthquake, tornado, hurricane, or other disaster, the contents of homes and offices can be scattered out in the open for miles. For example, after Hurricane Katrina, the sign for Sea World was found in Hattiesburg, MS, nearly 70 miles from the aquarium in Gulfport, MS. And some Coastal residents never found many of their belonging that had been blown or washed away during the storm.
If your home is destroyed during a disaster, your information can end up anywhere, just like the Sea World sign. Important documents like birth certificates and bills or other pieces of paper that contain personal information can put you at risk. And just as risky is the information that local business may keep about you. For example, courthouses, banks and doctors’ offices are not protected from disasters any more than you are.
To best protect yourself, take some time before you’re facing a disaster to consider what personal information you have stored around your home. Also make a list of the local business that might have your personal information stored in files or on computers. On the list, be sure to include the name of the business as well as the address and phone number. After a disaster, you may need to contact the business to find out how they were affected by the storm.
Preparing for the Worst
Once you’ve put some thought into all the ways your information could be at risk, then it’s time to take action. Gather up all of your personal and financial information and store it in one place. Some of the documents you should collect include:
- Driver’s Licenses
- Birth Certificates
- Marriage Certificates
- Death Certificates
- Adoption Paperwork
- Social Security Cards and Statements
- Insurance Paperwork (Home, Health, and Auto)
- Lease/Mortgage Paperwork
- Past Tax Returns
- Bank and Credit Card Statements
- Investment Paperwork
- Utility Bills
Gather all of this paperwork together in one place. It’s best to store it in a waterproof bag, inside a fireproof safe if possible. Then, if you’re evacuated, all you need to do is grab the waterproof bag and go. Even better, if the fireproof safe is portable, just take the whole thing.
One more element of preparing for evacuation: make sure everyone clearly understand whose responsibility it is to bring along the bag with all of your important paperwork in it. Deciding this before an evacuation occurs ensures that there won’t be any instances of everyone thinking someone else was going to get it.
Staying Safe During the Disaster
While a disaster is actually happening, chaos usually reigns. Criminals count on that. If you’re in a shelter, you can bet there will also be an opportunist there, just waiting for the moment you aren’t paying attention. When it happens, that person will grab whatever they can, and that includes your personal information. They may not be able to use it immediately, and may never use it all, but everyone knows that personal information is valuable these days.
Whether you’re in a shelter, staying with friends, or even crashing on your family’s couch, keep your paperwork safe at all times. In more than three-fourths of the cases of identity theft that are reported, the victims knew the thief. That means even family and friends aren’t guaranteed to be safe. Keep your personal paperwork on you at all times if you can. And if you can’t, don’t let it out of your sight.
Disasters are an unfortunately fact of life. They happen, and you can’t stop them. But you can be prepared and you can protect your identity. It takes a little pre-planning and some diligence, but in the end, it will be worth it.