What Should Be in a Life Box? A Complete Family Preparedness Checklist

Most households already have almost everything they need. The problem is that it lives in eleven different places: a filing cabinet, two email inboxes, a shoebox, a cloud drive, a lawyer's office, a bank's online portal, a spouse's memory. Nothing is missing, exactly. It's just that nobody except you could reconstruct it.

That's what a Life Box is for. Not a pile of files — a map. Enough structure and context that another trusted person could understand your household without you sitting beside them explaining it.

This checklist walks through every category worth covering. You are not expected to complete it in one sitting, and very little of it applies to everyone. Work through what's relevant, skip what isn't, and come back to the rest.

Identity

These are the documents that prove who you are. They're needed constantly in life and immediately by anyone acting on your behalf.

• Birth certificate
• Passport — and its expiry date
• Driver's licence
• Provincial health card
• Social Insurance Number (recorded carefully, not casually)
• Citizenship or permanent residency documentation
• Immigration and landing records
• Marriage certificate
• Separation agreement or divorce order
• Legal name-change documentation

Family and the people around you

Relationships are the part of a household that lives almost entirely in someone's head. Write them down.

• Spouse or partner — full legal name, date of birth, SIN location
• Children and their dates of birth
• Dependants and anyone you support financially
• Guardianship intentions for minor children
• Parents and siblings, with contact details
• Emergency contacts, in the order you'd want them called
• Anyone who should be told quickly, and anyone who should not be contacted

Legal

Life Box does not create these documents and it isn't a substitute for legal advice. What it can do is record that they exist, where the original is, and who prepared it — which is usually the missing piece.

• Will — and where the signed original is physically kept
• Power of attorney for property or finances
• Personal directive, representation agreement, mandate or health-care proxy, depending on your province
• Trust documents
• Marriage, cohabitation or separation agreements
• Shareholder and partnership agreements
• Your lawyer's name, firm and contact details

Money

You don't need to write down balances. You need to write down what exists and where, so someone could find it.

• Chequing and savings accounts, and which institution holds them
• RRSPs, TFSAs, RESPs, RRIFs and non-registered investment accounts
• Workplace pensions and any former-employer pensions
• Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security details
• Credit cards and lines of credit
• Mortgages and other loans
• Recurring payments and automatic withdrawals
• Safety deposit box location and where the key is
• Your financial advisor, accountant and bookkeeper
• Where recent tax returns are filed and who prepares them

Insurance

Unclaimed life insurance is one of the most common and most avoidable losses a family experiences. Insurers generally don't know when a policyholder dies.

• Life insurance — insurer, policy number, coverage, named beneficiaries
• Group life coverage through an employer or association
• Home or tenant insurance
• Auto insurance
• Disability and critical illness coverage
• Extended health and dental coverage
• Travel insurance and any credit-card coverage you rely on
• Business insurance
• Your broker's name and contact details

Property and home

• Home address, ownership structure and title or deed information
• Mortgage lender, account number and renewal date
• Property tax account
• Second properties, cottages and land
• Rental properties and tenant details
• Vehicles, trailers and boats with VINs and registration
• Storage units and their access codes
• Valuable possessions, appraisals and where they're kept
• Keys, alarm codes and who else holds a set
• Utilities and the accounts they're under

Health

• Health card number and province
• Family physician and specialists
• Current medications and dosages
• Allergies and reactions
• Ongoing conditions and relevant history
• Pharmacy
• Dentist and optometrist
• Care preferences, and where your directive is recorded

Business

If you own a business, its continuity information is often more urgent than your personal information — payroll, contracts and clients don't pause.

• Incorporation documents and corporate minute book location
• Shareholders, directors and signing authority
• Business banking and who can access it
• Accountant, bookkeeper and corporate lawyer
• Payroll provider and pay cycle
• Key contracts, clients and suppliers
• Software, domains and administrator accounts
• Key employees and who should be told first
• Written continuity instructions: what should happen in the first week

Digital life

The point isn't to dump every password into one place. It's to record which accounts matter, so nothing important simply goes dark.

• Primary email accounts — the ones that reset everything else
• Password manager, and how it can be recovered
• Phone and carrier account
• Cloud storage and photo libraries
• Domains and websites
• Social accounts and what you'd want done with them
• Subscriptions worth cancelling
• Cryptocurrency holdings and how they're secured, if applicable

People to call

• Lawyer
• Accountant
• Financial advisor
• Insurance broker
• Employer or HR contact
• Business partners
• Physician
• Funeral provider, if you've made arrangements
• Trusted family contacts, and the friend who always knows what to do

Estate and final wishes

• Executor, estate trustee or liquidator — and whether they've agreed
• Alternate representative
• Beneficiaries, including on registered accounts and insurance policies
• Burial, cremation or memorial preferences
• Any prepaid or preplanned arrangements
• Charitable wishes
• Specific possessions and who they should go to
• Pet care
• People to notify
• Obituary preferences

The things documents can't tell anyone

This is the category people skip, and it's often the most valuable. A file cabinet can hold a deed. It can't explain that the furnace filter is behind the stairs, that the neighbour has a spare key, or why the painting in the hallway matters.

• Where physical keys, spare keys and safe combinations are
• Alarm codes and who the monitoring company is
• Household routines and standing appointments
• Pet routines, vet and medications
• Trades and maintenance contacts you trust
• Context around assets — what something is, why it's held, what it's worth
• Family history and traditions worth keeping
• Messages you'd want the people you love to hear from you

How to actually get it done

1. 1Start with the four that matter most: will, life insurance, primary bank, and your list of people to call.
2. 2Add the documents you already have in digital form — that's usually an hour's work, not a weekend's.
3. 3Write down five things only you know.
4. 4Set a date once a year to review what's changed.

Perfection isn't the goal. A partly-finished Life Box is enormously more useful to your family than an intention.