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What Is the Best Grade of Safe?

19/03/2023
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The valuables you have accumulated throughout the years deserve to be kept in a secure environment, so investing in a safe for your belongings is something you should consider to protect your assets from any harm or theft. When looking for a safe to buy, checking its grading is essential, with a Grade 6 safe being the best.

However, many factors must be considered even after finding a grade 7 safe. Let us discuss this in a bit more detail and also talk about some of the reasons you should invest in a safe.

What is a Graded Safe?

GUN CABINET
Source: Safewell

It is not necessary for you to only be researching the market for commercial and industrial safes to invest in a graded safe. This is because even domestic, also known as home, safes have also been graded.

What safes being graded refer to is a particular category of different safes that have gone through a couple of tests and have been verified to adhere to certain euro-grade standards.

What euro grade standards mean is that the safe has to go through extensive and intense testing to ensure that they are of great quality, and are then categorized with a specific grading according to the effectiveness these safes exhibit in the resistance tests.

In addition to assuring you of being officially marked for their protection capabilities by certain standards, another benefit of investing in a graded safe is that they usually come with insurance.

How it works is that these safes, also known as AiS-approved safes, come under the protection of the Association of Insurance Surveyors, which provide insurance for your safes.

This is an additional precaution that may come in handy if your safe gets destroyed or your home is looted.

The major plus point of buying an insured graded safe is that the contents included in that safe can become a part of the insurance plan you have set up.

The Grading System

Speaking of grades, before exploring the different factors you need to consider when looking for the best safe most suited to your circumstances, let us first talk about the grading system in a bit more detail.

For a safe to be verified for being up to European standards, it must be given the EN1143-1 status. This code shows that the safe has undergone rigorous testing regarding burglary resistance.

After it has gone through these tests, the European standard gives a grade to the safe according to its performance in terms of resistance it has displayed in the tests, with a Grade 6 security rating being the most resistant, while a grade 0 safe is the least resistant.

Even though the grade 0 safe might offer less protection than the other security ratings, it does not signify that they are not useful.

On the contrary, they are known to be one of the best security options if you are looking for something much more economical to put in your home for efficient protection of your valuables.

Cash Rating on Grades

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Source: Safewell

Other than providing a measure of the level of security a safe can provide, there are additional uses for grading them. One of these is that, along with the security grade, a cash rating is assigned to each grade.

What this cash rating does is that it acts as an indication that allows you to evaluate how much cash the graded safe is supposed to protect, helping you make the right decision according to the valuables you are looking to store in your safe.

Even though many tests are included as part of the procedures carried out as a part of the EN1143-1 security verification process, some tests are conducted that are to insuring the safety of the contents within the safe rather than the safe itself, which is why they are not a part of this process.

Instead, these tests are used to evaluate the cash rating, which will be given to the safes after they have gone through certain assessments to check their fire resistance.

It is after evaluating and deciding on the grade of the safe that they are provided with coverage. The amount of coverage is as follows:

  • Grade 0: £6000 cash coverage and £60,000 valuables coverage
  • Grade 1: £10,000 cash coverage and £100,000 valuables coverage
  • Grade 2: £17,500 cash coverage and £175,000 valuables coverage
  • Grade 3: £35,000 cash coverage and £350,000 valuables coverage
  • Grade 4: £60,000 cash coverage and £600,000 valuables coverage
  • Grade 5: £60,000 cash coverage and £1,000,000 valuables coverage
  • Grade 6: £150,000 cash coverage and £1,500,000 valuables coverage

Why Should You Invest in a Graded Safe?

1. Theft Protection

As discussed previously, we are living in an age where break-ins and home burglaries are becoming more common with each passing day. Even though your possessions, such as furniture or appliances, can be replaced, some valuable assets, such as particular documents and cash, cannot.

This is why there are certain precautions we should take to ensure that our cash and other assets are stored in a secure place that cannot be broken into, which is where graded safes come in.

These special safes have undergone rigorous tests to ensure peak security and protection against burglaries and involuntary break-ins.

2. Protection from Water Damage

You may have heard that graded safes are ensured to offer burglar and fire protection, but what many people do not know is that they offer safety from possible water damage as well, making them the perfect purchase to store valuable documents and photographs.

Furthermore, many graded safes in the market offer water damage protection for up to 48 hours after complete submergence in water.

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Best Grade of Safe

When researching the market to determine what grade safe may be the best for your situation, there are certain factors that you need to keep in mind before making a decision.

Let us explore this in greater detail, highlighting some key considerations you need to consider before deciding on the safe grade you wish to invest in.

· Type of Safe

One of the first things you need to determine when looking for the safe most suitable for your situation is the type of safe you are going for. Many different kinds of safes have been launched into the market, and each has been built keeping different purposes in mind.

This is why you need to research the different types to pinpoint which one is the most suited for your current needs so that you don’t get overwhelmed by the many different safes in the market and can easily make a well-informed decision.

Home Safe

BS2602F05
Source: Safewell

This is your conventional graded safe which has been made to be kept in your homes for the safekeeping of cash and other valuables which you might wish to keep close to you in your home. These safes are usually incredibly heavy and made of steel, so they are highly durable.

Furthermore, they can be fireproof and equipped with different locking mechanisms, such as a combination lock, a simple key lock, or much more complex electronic ones.

They are known to be one of the most versatile graded safes, perfect for storing a wide list of valuables, making them the most suitable for houses.

Floor Safes

TD05
Source: Safewell

If you want to take extra measures to ensure that no one removes the safe from your home, then you should look at graded floor safes. These are special and completely immune to any type of removal because, as the name suggests, floor safes are fitted directly into your home’s flooring.

However, be careful when getting these safes installed because, although they are known for their security and concealment, because of the way they are fitted, even the best-graded floor safes are prone to rusting.

· The Safe Size

In addition to the safe type you are looking for, you also need to consider the size you think would be the most optimal for your situation. You might think this decision is the most straightforward, but that is definitely not the case.

Even though investing in a larger safe would mean more protection for the valuables you wish to protect, you need to consider certain elements, such as the space available and the maximum number of valuables you would like to store your graded safe as well.

An example is that it would be impractical to invest in an industrial-grade safe that spans an entire wall if you cannot accommodate the size of that safe.

Similarly, it would also be unnecessary to consider investing in safes that span the entire flooring or occupy space equal to that of an entire room if all you are looking to store within them is some cash and a couple of pages of important documentation.

However, you need to remember that the opposite is also not occurring. What this means is that you would not want to be investing in an incredibly compact graded safe as well, as it will not only be much less secure, but it can prove to be inefficient if the size of the safe is not enough to accommodate all of the valuables that you wish to store.

· Features of the Safe

Safes used to be rather straightforward in the old times. However, due to the advancements the safe industry has gone through in modern times, newly launched safes now come with various security features.

These include but are not limited to digital locks and protection from various disasters, such as fire and water damage protection, which you must also consider.

· Security Rating

In addition to the grading for a safe, there are other security ratings that certain safes possess that you must also keep a look out for.

The security rating of a safe is primarily used to measure how much protection the safe can provide the valuables that have been stored within them in the case of a burglary or fire.

For a safe to receive a security rating, they go through several different burglary and fire protection-related tests, after which they have been given a fire or burglary rating accordingly, which is used to form a security rating.

· Budget

After everything regarding the nature of the safe you are looking for has been determined, the last thing you need to consider is the amount of money you want to invest in your safe.

To get the most out of the budget you have set for your safety, you need to prioritize functionality over features when researching the market.

This means that you may come across a safe in the market which is within your budget and contains many security features, such as a digital lock. It will be useless if the graded safe doesn’t offer peak protection according to your budget.

Conclusion

When buying a safe to store your belongings, investing in a graded safe rather than your conventional safe is advised, primarily because graded safes go through various tests to be awarded a measure of protection they provide by the European standard.

Furthermore, graded safes are also insured, which means that valuables stored within them can also be part of your insurance plan. 

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