How do you move financial records across the country when moving?

The thought of moving cross-country for work has come up a few times in the last decade. Nothing has ever panned out, but I'm planning for a regional move to come up soon. Part of that is doing "spring cleaning" on my records. From the recommended retention periods for things such as tax documents, bank statements, retirement account yearly statements, medical record and payment information, and credit card statements, I will need to keep some stuff for 1 year and for others permanently (like tax records). Most of the stuff falls within a 7 year retention period. Thus, I need to keep these items for a while. Looks like most will fit in a banker's box.

Cross country would take about 4-7 days by ground. Most of my stuff I would assume would either be sold or transported by a moving company (assumption is work related and they'll pay). That leaves me getting on a plane with enough stuff to survive for 2-3 days and buying the rest when I land. However, how do I make sure these required financial records are not lost and secure during the transit?

you could scan them all (a PITA).

Personally we drive when we move. Last time, my Tacoma pulled my wife's civic, which had every nook and cranny filled with stuff. Weighed it after the drive at about 3000 lbs.

Otherwise ... most moving companies will take locked items (such as filing cabinets or the plastic bins you can buy at sporting good places). I haven't had problems yet, but I hear horror stories.

Most banks/financial institutions will let you download pdf statements back over a period of time. Revolving accounts such as checking/savings/credit are typically a year and others may go more. I switched to paperless a while back and scanned any prior to the date I could download. I keep two folder structures, one for accounts and one for archived\accounts. The accounts I keep anything still open and moved to the accounts under archived if I close an account and just want to keep the data.
Before I moved I also cleaned up all my scrap wood/materials/computers/electronics piles, all those leftovers from small projects or items that broke and I kept for spare parts. Any furniture thats not heirloom you can sell and buy. Tools and gear I made sure to have toolboxes/bags/rolls etc that everything can be stored in to prevent small items from getting lost.

For every risk you have three options: Accept it, insure against it, or mitigate it.

Make sure you understand how insurance applies to things being moved by your moving company, both your insurance and whatever insurance they provide. Insurance is not typically a good way to handle records that are lost, stolen or destroyed.

I'm a big fan of backups. Almost all of my important records are digital and backed up. Anything that can't reasonably be backed up should probably travel with you if you're traveling by ground. If you're flying and it won't go in a carry-on, I would send it FedEx -- in my opinion they are the most reliable package and document carrier (no affiliation).

Thanks for the thoughts! I was more concerned with losing a document and possibly needing it later, though I don't have a complicated tax situation so not too worried. This confirms my general idea that I would scan things I needed. The second one was to put it all in a box send it via FedEx. Maybe multiple boxes.

See if you can download papers first rather than scanning, its much easier.
Also switch to paperless while your in there, no need to have that information sent through the mail. My old neighborhood the few of us good neighbors left would meet up once a week to exchange all the mid-delivered mail. Who knows who else may have gotten my bank statements before I switched everything to paperless.