A "break-glass" kit is the information someone needs if you are suddenly unable to act — a medical emergency, a lost device, or an environment where you cannot reach your accounts. Build it before you need it, because you will not have time later.
In Case of Emergency contacts are the people called first. For each one record name, role, phone, email and a short note explaining what they should know. Order them by priority. Three is a good minimum: a primary decision-maker, a backup, and a medical contact.
The survival ledger lists institutions, policy or reference numbers, and the protocol to follow — never raw passwords. A password belongs in a password manager, not a printed sheet. The ledger answers what exists and who to contact: banks, insurers, employers, tax authorities, utilities.
Condense the essentials onto a printable wallet card: your name and identifier, your primary and backup ICE contact, a one-line directive on where the full ledger is kept, and any critical medical notes. This card lives in a physical wallet — the one place that survives a dead phone.
A kit nobody can find is useless. Give a trusted person — executor, spouse, adult child — a copy of the packet or tell them exactly where the printed card and ledger are stored. If you use the encrypted PDF packet, share the password through a separate channel.
Phone numbers change, policies lapse, banks merge. Revisit the kit every six months or after any major life change. A stale break-glass kit creates more problems than none.