21 Oct What You Should (and Shouldn’t) Store in Your Home Safe
in Home Safety by Gulfshore Home Watch and Concierge
In our last blog post, we talked about how you can keep the items that you have stored in your safe, protected from fire, water, and smoke damage. For this post, we wanted to cover the types of things you should (and shouldn’t) store in your home safe.
Starting from the top
Your home safe is a good choice to store certain types of important documents, such passports, birth certificates, your marriage certificate, trust and/or will documents, social security cards, power of attorney documents and insurance policy documents.
You can also store other items of value, that are replaceable. Examples include cash, jewelry, photographs, certain types of firearms, flash drives, expensive belts, wallets, and purses. As we noted in our last blog, it may be wise to store in-safe documents in a fireproof / waterproof storage sleeve. If your home sustains water damage (from a flood or because of a fire), this will help keep your items protected.
Things that are better stored in a safe deposit box
Do you have heirloom jewelry that’s been in your family for generations? Do you have precious metals, coins, or other items that are irreplaceable? These are the types of things that you should store in a safe deposit box. Why? Because if your home is burglarized and your safe door is pried open (or it’s stolen altogether), what’s in your safe will likely be gone forever.
If you have a hard copy of your property inventory, this should also be stored in a safe deposit box.
If you’ve been following our blog, you’ve likely seen our posts about the benefits of creating an in-home inventory. And while some people will store their photos and videos in the cloud, others opt for hard-copy photos. Both methods work well—however, if you have hard copy photos, you don’t want to keep those at home. Again, if your safe is stolen, broken into, or the items inside are damaged by water, fire or smoke, your property inventory will be lost.
Final thoughts
Having a home safe can give you an added sense of security. It’s a great place to store extra cash, your passports, and other important documents that you may need to access quickly. However, there are things that are better stored offsite.
For more information about the benefits of installing a safe, the benefits of creating a home inventory, or to learn how a Home Watch service can help keep your home safe in your absence, be sure to check out our other blog postings. We have plenty to say about all of these topics.
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TAGS: burglary prevention, home safety, home security, home watch southwest florida