Home Safe or Safety Deposit Box?

When we start to accumulate wealth we need to start protecting it along with other important documents.  Some of us may be wondering what to keep in our Safety Deposit Box, and some of us may be wondering what we should keep in our Home Safe.

Some of us may have a Safety Deposit Box at our bank, and some of us may have a Home Safe.  Some of us may have both, although I think that may be safety overkill.  There are several things that we should keep in our Safety Deposit Box at our bank and other things that we should keep in our Home Safe if we choose to do so.

What is in Your Safety Deposit Box?

As a bank employee I have no right to know the contents of a client’s safety deposit box.  This is why after retrieving our personal items we are escorted to a private room with our Safety Deposit Box.  People may choose to keep only important papers such as insurance policies along with their Last Will and Testament in a Safety Deposit Box.  However, some other people keep jewellery, family heirlooms, their birth certificates as well as their Social Security Card in their Safety Deposit Box.

In movies and on television we often see people keeping cash in their Home Safe or their Safety Deposit Box.  I disagree with this because if the money is in a Safe and not in a bank account, it is not earning any interest.  The contents of a Safety Deposit Box cannot be seized, even upon death or bankruptcy.  However, the contents of a Safety Deposit Box are also not insured by the bank.

Clients only rent the space from their bank for their Safety Deposit Box to keep their assets safe, the contents are not property of the bank and therefore they are not insured by the bank.  If we have a Safety Deposit Box we should have separate insurance for our assets and valuable items on our Homeowners Insurance Policy.

Do you have a Safety Deposit Box or a Home Safe?

The advantage of having a safe at our home is that we have access to our valuables and assets at all times with the twist of a dial or the punch of a keypad.  A fireproof and waterproof safe is definitely a good idea for the safekeeping of important documents and it is convenient to have at home.  However, it can be troublesome if we forget the code to open our safe.  We have so many pin numbers and passwords to remember, it may be easier to have a key to open our Safety Deposit Box at the bank.

There are pros and cons to having a Safety Deposit Box at our bank, and there are pros and cons of having a Home Safe.  A Safety Deposit Box at our bank ensures that our assets are protected and safeguarded at all times.  However, it may be inconvenient to go to our bank every single time we need to retrieve our assets.  A Home Safe ensures easy access to our valuables, but remembering the code could be a problem.

Photo  by K Tyler Conk