MARGATE – Are you fiscally fit for Hurricane Season? We Florida Financial wants to make sure that you have your household covered both externally and internally if a storm takes you by surprise. The Atlantic Hurricane Season runs through November 30 with the peak period from early August through the end of October.
While, it’s been nearly a decade since a hurricane has impacted Florida, our state has been hit by seven of the 10 most costly and damaging hurricanes in U.S. history. According to the Insurance Information Institute, Florida accounted for 14 percent of all U.S. insured catastrophe losses from 1983 to 2013, or $66.8 billion out of $478.4 billion adjusted for inflation in October 2014.
In addition to preparing for your personal safety should a hurricane strike, you need to prepare for the financial challenges associated with a hurricane such as having access to cash, financial services, and personal identification should you need to pay for supplies, temporary housing, or to conduct your personal financial matters. Here are our Top 10 tips that can help you make the most of your finances and property, should a hurricane strike:
- Property Inventory Checklist – Document your possessions. If your home is destroyed and you needed to submit an insurance claim, would you be able to remember all of your possessions and their replacement values? Why wonder? Create a visual inventory of your belongings, now. Keep it in a safe place (or store online), where it will not be destroyed and will be easily accessible if a disaster occurs. For valuable purchases, you may also want to save or scan your receipts.
- Get Cash Early – During and after a storm, power outages and downed communication lines are a common occurrence. As a result, you may experience difficulty using credit, debit, and ATM cards so it’s preferable to have an adequate supply of cash on-hand.
- Order Checks & Deposit Slips – Make sure that you have enough checks and deposit slips to last two months, and take them with you if you evacuate, even if you rarely write checks. In the midst of a disaster, your payment habits may require change and by having your account information handy you can quickly authorize an important payment over the phone.
- Debit, Credit & ATM Cards – Check the expiration dates on all of your plastic cards and make certain that dates are current and you have a valid card should you have to evacuate. Also, take a moment to locate your PINs and make certain that all of your cards have been activated. Be sure to successfully use each of your cards, at least once, before a hurricane hits. You don’t want to learn after the fact that a card isn’t active or a PIN doesn’t work properly.
- Sign-up for Direct Deposit – Direct Deposit gives you the confidence that your money will be in your account, available for use, when it is supposed to be, even if you are evacuated and a hurricane disrupts mail service.
- Sign-up for Online Account Monitoring and the Mobile Money App – During a disaster it is extremely important to have access to your account information to check balances, view account history, transfer funds between accounts, make payments online, and more. We Florida Financial also offers a free Mobile Money App that conveniently allows you to access your accounts anytime, anywhere, using your mobile device. Being able to view and access your account on-the-go such as in an evacuation situation will give you added peace-of-mind.
- Sign-up for E-Statements – When a hurricane strikes, mail service will be disrupted especially when an evacuation occurs. To ensure that your account statements arrive on time, sign up for E-Statements and start receiving your account statements online.
- Sign-up for Online bill payments – Bills are due regardless of if a hurricane strikes or not. Online bill payment service is a secure means to pay your bills during hurricane season and throughout the year. With Bill Pay, payments get paid on-time according to your instructions; you control who is paid, when payments are made, and the amount of the payments.
- Back It Up – In the case of power outages or emergencies, make sure you regularly back-up your important documents, websites and passwords so you may access them in another location. You can do this via a portable hard drive or online cloud-storage systems that accessible, anywhere.
- Pack It Up – Make sure to pack your driver’s license or state issued identification card, birth certificate, Social Security card, insurance cards and policies (health, life, auto, homeowners, etc.), employer or school I.D., voter registration card, most recent account statements (deposit, checking, investment, credit cards, and loans), etc. — for you and all immediate family members. These documents will be needed if you, or a family member, have to prove your identity, claim benefits, make withdrawals, deposits, payments or change account information. Make certain, beforehand, that all documents have valid expiration dates, and make copies (either photo or scanned) for storage in a safe place for easy access should you get separated from your documents. Pack documents in waterproof plastic bags and be prepared to take them with you if you have to evacuate!
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