Instead of utilising a safe, the majority of homeowners sometimes hide their valuables throughout the house. Popular places include the refrigerator, beneath books or on bookshelves, or even in the shed are a few places where people occasionally conceal valuables. One thing all these hiding locations have in common is that the burglar is aware of them and will always check them out on a regular basis.
The best home safes
It all depends on what you want to keep in it, how much you want to put in it, and how much it is worth altogether. Three criteria are used to assess the functionality of safes and produce resistance grades, which insurers may use to determine how much cash and jewellery they are prepared to cover for a certain safe.
A safe with a cash rating of £2,000 may hold ten times as much cash in the form of £20,000 in valuables or jewellery. Therefore, if the cash rating is £4,000, it will be sufficient for jewellery valued at £40,000. Because a safes installation is so important to its operation, insurers almost always demand a professional instal before they would provide cover, which will increase the entire cost.
Because criminals want to get in and out of your home as quickly as they can, there are relatively few police records regarding cash-rated safes being broken into. Cash, jewellery, credit cards, vehicle keys, and even the vehicle itself are the items that are most frequently taken during a burglary. By keeping these items in a safe, you will significantly lessen your losses in the event that the worst happens.
DIY installed safes
In DIY stores, you can get wall safes, floorboard safes, under-the-floor safes, and free-standing safes, but an online vendor will almost definitely have a broader selection. The insurer will likely demand that the safe be certified to a specified cash rating and be professionally installed if you want the contents to be covered by your insurance company and the value of those contents exceeds the limits of the standard home insurance policy.
Professionally installed safes
If you have a lot of expensive jewellery or run a profitable home company, you should get a safe from a locksmith or from a specialised safe manufacturer or reseller that also provides installation services. You can be sure the safe will have the appropriate cash rating and that your insurance will cover the risk in this way. You could receive a list of businesses from which to purchase your safe from some insurance companies.
Different types:
It is crucial to understand that not all safes will shield their contents from a fire. If you have valuable documents to store, such as the house deeds, then you’ll need a fire resistant safe.
Deception safes and containers
These are not safes in the usual sense of the word, but rather inexpensive ways to conceal valuables in the event of theft. There are also fixed containers like a double plug socket that is actually a drawer with a key lock in one of the slots, as well as portable containers like hollowed-out books to put on a bookshelf and tins that look perfectly like soup or bean cans to store in your kitchens cupboard.
Wall safes
The best time to install a wall safe is while you are decorating because it is often manufactured to replace two or three bricks in a wall. It will sit behind the remaining bricks with a concrete back fill and a back plate that is bigger than the safe. For the simple reason that they can be removed from a wall with a sledgehammer, most wall safes have a poor security rating. They have probably not been put to any kind of test because they are often only insured up to roughly £1,000 in cash. This advice applies to any safe you install, so check with your insurance before you do so, unless you don’t want your insurer to cover the contents of the safe.
Floorboard safes
These safes have a shape that allows them to attach to and fit between floor joists. Inside the safe are mounting holes for additional security. Although they only have a £1,000 cash rating, they are worth using if the goal is to simply conceal valuables.
Under floor safes
Although this safe is not the same as a floorboard safe, it can and should be put into concrete, so if your floor is concrete, you’ve already made some progress. Because the installer must make a significant hole in your concrete floor and damp-proof it, installing them may be pricey and untidy, but once installed, you’ll receive a respectable cash rating of potentially up to £6,000.
Floor standing safes
These start at the lowest cash rating of £1000 and go all the way up to £35,000, and potentially even higher. Typically, someone will find one of these and conceal it with something beneath the stairs or in the corner of a room. The floor must be solid for the safe to be secured to it. In order to obtain the insurance coverage, a high cash rating safe must be professionally fitted.
Fire safes
A fire safe is a type of security storage that you might use to keep items like the property deeds, your will, passports, and other important papers. It is meant to safeguard precious paper documents in a fire, including bundles of cash. Fire safes with security cash ratings are also available for purchase.
Data safes
The temperature at which data storage devices begin to fail in a fire is 52°C, however there are safes specifically made to maintain cabinet temperatures below that level. It would be a good idea to purchase one of these if you operate a home-based business.
Security standards for safes
Entry level security standard:
BS EN 14450: 2005 Secure storage units Requirements, classifications, and methods of test for resistance to burglary. Secure safe cabinets.
Higher level security standard:
BS EN 1143-1: 2005+A1: 2009 Secure storage units. Requirements, classification and methods of test for resistance to burglary. Safes, ATM safes, strongroom doors and strongrooms.
Additional level security standard:
LPS 1183: Issue 4.2. Requirements and testing procedures for the LPCB Approval and Listing of Safe Storage Units. Part One: Safes and Strongrooms.
Insurers use these criteria to decide how much cash and jewellery they are prepared to cover for a certain safe. These standards are used to assess the functioning of the safes and give resistance grades.
It is crucial to discuss the purchase of a safe with your insurance company before making a decision, they can have their own restrictions for particular safes. You should buy safes that have passed security tests and received a certificate of compliance. Safe testing and certification procedures are sometimes like those used to certify improved security doors and enhanced window security.
Reconditioned and second-hand safes should be refurbished to BS7582: 2005 Code of practice for pre-used safes.