Many online wallet providers such as Coinbase have not provided a statement on what will happen to your btc if the chain splits. I highly advise to keep your btc in a wallet where you host the private keys or somewhere such as freebitco.in that has made a statement on the hard fork and will give you the bitcoins you have on both chains.
What are your thoughts on keeping it as a stable alt like dash or litecoin?
I think following a stakable alt might be a good idea such as stratis. I picked up some when it went down.
On the other habd litecoin went far down! Glad i didnt take it as a safeguard
I made a detailed article regarding this topic:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@idunno/how-to-prepare-for-bitcoin-split