Thoughts about bugging out

[Paul]

Your life is much more important than valuables in an emergency situation BUT making prior arrangements about correspondance (especiallly banking and statements) got me out of a few scrapes when I took time off from work a few years ago and on reflection is useful in case you have to bug out.

First the obvious.
Leaving your home means it's undefended. You may come back to squatters or worse still nothing at all. You'll probably lose your stores and valuables anyway to looters. BUT leaving your home for a protracted time, typically 30 days, can affect your home insurances.

Scenario 1.
You decide that things are looking bad so you move into your prepared B.O.L.
After a month or so nothing happens so you return home to find damage or looting.
As you left home more than 30 days ago, the insurance company is not obliged to pay up as you effectively deserted your home.
All in the small print and something to check on.

Scenario 2.
You are ordered out of your home by the authorities for your own safety.
In a conflict or civil unrest time, the chances are your insurances are automatically invalid BUT, under law, you need displaced person status to receive aid and ultimately financial assistance (if available).
That status is usually automatically awarded if you are ordered to leave your abode.
It also helps you regarding any benefits you are claiming.

If you are lucky enough to receive benefits, you may lose them if you volentarily leave your address and they find out.
They will probably claim back what they paid you whilst you were absent too! A no win situation unless you were ordered to leave.

Your bank or other financial institutions won't be happy if you go walkabout without telling them and they get funny about using temporary or accomodation addresses for statements.

If you haven't previously set up a "copy to" address for statements, correspondance, etc, to your B.O.L. or family address, typically after 3 months most proof of address you are carrying in the form of bills or statements becomes invalid.

After that taking out a loan, renting, claiming benefits, or even buying a property becomes hard as you can't prove your current address. Not forgetting that your debit and credit cards will be difficult to renew as they are normally posted to your home address UNLESS you have previously made another arrangment. That's something you wouldn't want in the hands of looters.

Your ID is safe whilst your passport is valid and you are carrying a birth certificate BUT as most agencies want multiple CURRENT proofs of address as well as ID, your driving licence won't be enough.
As for your passport, you need current proof of address to renew it.

Effectively no current proof of address renders you as having NO FIXED ABODE.(N.F.A.) and is a bad state of affairs as it affects everyone in your family.

For example.
Quality or protracted medical care becomes difficult to obtain.
Even prescribed drugs can be difficult to get.
Same thing with NHS dental care.
Got kids? Schooling is hard to obtain and will be basic, not forgetting that taking your kids out of their school without good reason is an offence.
Need benefits to survive? N.F.A. greatly limits what you can claim.

For course you are still going to have to pay all the bills, debts (loans, etc) and taxes of your old address even if it gets flattened!

Just a little food for thought.