How do you store all your financial documents?

[crypie]

I'm curious to hear how the folks in this group keep track of all your critical financial documents - especially so your significant other could access them in the event of your untimely passing. I maintain most of the investments, bank accounts, life insurance etc for my wife and me. I imagine most of you in relationships have one person that knows all the details and the other is probably aware but might not know exactly where every account is and how to access them in the unlikely event you were gone.

It's not necessarily a fun topic to discuss but it's better to plan than to be caught off guard.

I've seen a couple different approaches:
- The old 3 ring binder approach with summaries or relevant accounts, contact numbers, etc
- Documents scanned and stored on a USB drive
- Documents stored on the cloud (dropbox, etc)
- Safe deposit boxes

I'm also curious if you store usernames and passwords to online accounts. I can imagine that you want to make it easy if that type of stressful situation arises. I figure this group has some good ideas they use or have seen used with parents/grandparents etc.

Thanks

[ArbitraryGuy]

I use a safe deposit box for storing important documents.  With our account, a box was free.  Both my wife and I can access the box.  All documents are sealed in a water-proof bag, should the bank's sprinklers go off.

My online account info (passwords and such) is stored in the Norton Antivirus browser add-on "vault" that I have.  I'm not impressed with it at all -- it crashes all the time. (Yes, I am using all of the latest updates of everything).

[On_a_slow_boat]

One key part of storing your financial documents in my opinion is having at least one person you trust have an updated listing of where all your accounts are and how to get access to them.

My wife is constantly updated on where our finances are, in addition to that I have a one page piece of paper I print out for my dad to keep in his safe. (i won't send it to him electronically as i don't trust his PC..he does no online financials at all... very old school)

I want him to know exactly where all my accounts are, what the acct#'s and access codes, along with what number to call.  I would hate for something to happen to me, and one of my accounts to go missing because no one ever knew i had some money there but me.

My father has reciprocated with a list of where all his accounts are. My mother is not very interested in Finances, so i convinced him that if something were to happen to him the easiest thing he could do right now to make sure mom is ok is to make sure we at least know where everything is.

[Thegoblinchief]

Both my wife and I have copies (physical for mine, encrypted electronic for hers) of relevant access credentials. We have physical statements and whatnot, but everything is on the web.

[milla]

I have legal documents in a file in my office. Financials? Not so much, they're all online. Passwords are all different but he knows the Mint password that would give him a list of places to call.
My sister knows where everything is (doesn't have passwords) and she'd be able to tell him where to look. Lol. His memory is terrible. I have our life insurance info in our binder with our schedule info/calendar, etc. It has a big circle on the phone number that says "CALL THEM IF I DIE". If they manage to make that one phone call they'll be set.