Insurance and Safes: A Buyer’s Guide to AIS and Eurograde Safes

Discover all you need to know about insurance protection and cash rated safes with our guide to AiS approved units and Eurograde safes.

It can be hugely frustrating when you are unable to trigger the insurance payout you are looking for. Even if you have not been in this situation before, it can cause significant worry for those that may run into insurance-related problems in the future. The influence of the media and their dramatic stories doesn’t help either but rather inflates the concerns of individuals and businesses alike, with horror stories of massive payments being missed due to seemingly erroneous circumstances or loopholes found by the insurer.

Despite doubts, insurance companies do pay out more often than not. For example, 79% of home insurance claims are paid. That does, however, leave 21% of claimants left without the financial support they need after an incident. So, how can you ensure that you aren’t part of the group that doesn’t receive a payout?

In order to make a successful claim, you need to provide evidence that you’ve taken appropriate precautions and that you’ve followed the terms of your policy rigorously. When this comes to property theft at a home or business premises, this ‘evidence’ means demonstrating that property security was established before the break-in.

Essentially, you must present an argument that an insurer cannot refute.

But how can you actually prove that you secured all of your possessions and assets appropriately – so as to guarantee your insurer has no course of action but to pay out for lost goods? The answer is simple: you acquire a cash rated safe.

What Is a Cash Rated Safe And How Does It Impact My Insurance?

Cash rated safes offer superior protection; not necessarily in terms of actual physical property security, but in terms of insurance payouts.

A cash rated safe is a unit defined as having a pre-approved rating for valuables. Items stored inside the safe are secured up to a certain valuation, depending on the type of cash rated safe you’ve bought. If possessions held inside the safe are stolen — or the safe itself is removed — insurers are required to pay out on anything covered up to the cash rating assigned to the unit. For example, if your safe is rated up to £60,000 for belongings, you can claim on items anywhere up to that cash value.

Besides ensuring a guaranteed pay out on claims, a cash rated safe can also help lower your insurance premiums. Safes achieve cash ratings as they are deemed to be secure enough to hold valuables to a standard of which insurers expect that they will not be easily accessible to thieves. Therefore, ownership of a safe can drive down annual costs.

Who Needs An Insurance-Approved Safe?

In short: anyone with high-value items to protect.

Around 500,000 residential properties are burgled in the UK each year, with 95% of belongings taken never being recovered. What’s more, 50% of UK businesses will be subject to some kind of theft or criminal damage during their operation. It doesn’t matter if you are running a large corporate empire or living in a one-bedroom flat, we’re all a potential target for thieves.

Putting into place additional methods of protection for high-value goods is essential for not only keeping them safe, but also ensuring you don’t take a massive financial hit should they be stolen. Cash rated safes offer that piece of mind for both:

• Businesses — By making sure cash stored can be recovered and assets lost can easily be replaced. Without this protection, your business could be dealt a serious financial blow, as replacements for stolen goods may dramatically hamper profit margins.

• Residential Properties — The most commonly stolen items from a home are car keys, jewelry and smart tech. If your insurance company refuses to pay out, you may be faced with a situation where you are either unable to reclaim goods (as they are too expensive to replace), or suffer financial difficulties as you have to offset the costs yourself/take out loans to recover lost property.

Cash rated safes remove the risk. They lower your chances of actually having items stolen in the first place, as they make it tough for thieves to access goods. Then, in the unlikely event that they do access goods, you are guaranteed to have your financial investment in the stolen property recovered.

What is an AIS Approved Safe?

The Association of Insurance Surveyors, or AIS, is an official governing organisation that independently evaluates insurance risks for UK insurance agencies. Their goal is to ensure products and services meet certain criteria that insurers can then back as legitimate methods of policy incorporation.

Basically, they assess and test risk factors on behalf of insurance companies so that the insurers don’t have to. This includes providing safes with ratings that certify what kind of cash value they are capable of reasonably protecting from theft or damage.

A safe that is AIS approved will be given a rating in cash value, typically between £1,000 and £100,000. This means that the AIS have deemed it capable of securing this kind of financial asset. However, this figure is increased for physical possessions, such as business equipment or jewelry. This number is always a multiple of 10. So, that means a £4,000 AIS approved safe is also approved to secure £40,000 in goods.

If your safe is not approved by AIS, this means it has not been independently verified by the organisation. It It may still come with a recommended cash rating for insurers, but many agencies will not accept this as it hasn’t been covered by the association. An AIS approved safe will always be marked with AIS branding.

Does an AIS approved, cash rated safe sound like it would be an ideal addition to your property? All About Safes have a wide-range of home safes and commercial safes to suit your needs. Find the perfect safe to suit your needs today!

What is a Eurograde Safe?

AIS approved safes are only really meant for residential security and small businesses, providing good but limited storage of high-value goods.

While they do offer great protection, they aren’t the most comprehensive options and are certainly not capable of handling all high-risk assets that may be stored by businesses or high personal-wealth individuals and families. For that, you’ll need to upgrade to the next level: Eurograde safes.

Eurograde safes are units that offer superior asset protection. Tested by organisations such as VdS in specialist laboratories, Eurograde safes are an essential tool for any business or person that wants to secure extremely high-value items, and ensure coverage by insurers if they were to be stolen.

You will find Eurograde safes come with seven levels of cash rating:

• Eurograde 0 – £6,000
• Eurograde 1 – £10,000
• Eurograde 2 – £17,500
• Eurograde 3 – £35,000
• Eurograde 4 – £60,000
• Eurograde 5 – £100,000
• Eurograde 6 – £150,000
• Eurograde 7 – £250,000

Eurograde safes also allow for goods to be secured to a multiple of 10, which means £150,000 cash-rated Eurograde safes offer physical asset protection of £1,500,000.

Do you need superior protection for your high-value goods or cash? Eurograde safes are the only real solution for providing both great asset protection and guaranteed insurance coverage. All About Safes stock high-quality Eurograde safes in all cash-rating levels. Discover our stock today.

Important Things to Remember About Cash Rated AIS and Eurograde Safes

Having a cash rated safes means that an insurer will pay out in the event of theft — providing you follow agreed upon policy details. However, different policies will have different ways of managing such circumstances. Here are some important things you should know about using AIS or Eurograde safes for insurance purposes:

• In order to make a claim, you may be required to have a prearranged agreement with your insurer, detailing exactly what will be held in the safe.
• If you are a business, you may need to detail what equipment is held inside and how much cash you will be storing. If cash is stored, you may also need to retain receipts as evidence that it was indeed inside the safe at the time of theft and not being held off-site or already been transferred to a bank.
• For personal possessions in a residential property, an insurer may require you to list the items that you will hold within the safe, as a method of ensuring you don’t attempt to claim on items stolen that were not housed in the unit.
• Use of safes may require that certain criteria are met in order to meet the policies set out by insurers. This will relate to how access is granted to individuals and how the safes are secured. For example, any Eurograde safe under 1000kg must be fixed to your building with secure bolts or it will not provide validated coverage.

All insurance organisations will have unique policies and terms for the use of a cash rated safes. When taking out insurance, or acquiring a safe to protect yourself in the event of a claim, it is first advisable that you discuss what options are available with your provider. Awareness of proper safe policy and usage ensures that insurers are not able to find loopholes or a way out of making a payout.

At All About Safes, we’re expert providers of every type of safe you can think of, and that includes AIS approved safes and Eurograde safes. If you aren’t sure what kind of unit you need, why not get in touch with our expert engineers to discuss your options? We’ll never try to sell you something you don’t need!