Although safety deposit boxes are designed to be secure, they’re not invulnerable. Fires caused by electrical issues, lightning strikes, or other disasters can still pose a risk.
But what happens if a fire engulfs your bank? Will your safety deposit box truly protect your valuables?
Contrary to popular belief, safety deposit boxes are not fireproof. They can’t withstand extreme heat. At 451 degrees Fahrenheit, paper documents ignite. At 1,763 degrees Fahrenheit, metals like jewelry can melt.
Understanding this, you might wonder: Are your valuables insured if a fire destroys them? I’ll break it all down so you can make an informed decision about where to store your most valuable items.
In this guide, I’ll cover:
What happens if your safety deposit box gets burned in a fire.
Items you shouldn’t keep in your safety deposit box.
Alternatives to safety deposit boxes.
Is Your Safety Deposit Box Safe During a Fire?
Most safety deposit boxes are stored in bank vaults designed to be fire-resistant to some extent. However, during a major fire, extreme heat or prolonged exposure could compromise the vault's integrity, potentially damaging or destroying the contents of your safety deposit box.
Even if the vault wasn’t destroyed, all the crucial documents in your safety deposit box would turn to ashes if the temperature got high enough.
So the answer is a resounding no: Your safety deposit box isn't necessarily safe from fire.
What Happens if Your Safety Deposit Box Gets Destroyed?
Banks do not insure the contents of the safety deposit boxes because only the owner of the box knows what’s inside. Unless you purchased a separate insurance policy for your safety deposit box’s contents from a third party, you wouldn’t get reimbursed.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) doesn't insure the contents of a safety deposit box either. FDIC insurance covers only deposit accounts such as checking and savings.
If you want to insure the contents of your safety deposit box, I recommend purchasing a rider to your homeowners insurance policy to cover your valuables.
Items You Shouldn't Store in a Safety Deposit Box
There are a few items that should not be kept in a safety deposit box, which include cash, passports, uninsured valuables, living wills, and medical records. Cash is not insured, and you may need urgent access to important documents like your passport when the bank isn’t open.
It’s much more optimal to store money in a bank account. Meanwhile, the best storage option for important documents is to use a digital storage platform like Trustworthy.
Safety Deposit Box Alternatives
Rather than putting your valuable contents at risk in a standard safety deposit box, let’s discuss a few alternative solutions.
1. Fireproof Home Safe
The best place to keep physical copies of important documents is in a fireproof at-home safe. This way, you’ll always have immediate access to these documents and don’t have to worry about them getting destroyed in a bank fire.
However, it’s important to know that no safe is 100% fireproof. Safes are fire-resistant only up to a certain temperature and for a limited amount of time. The best home safes are fireproof for 60 minutes at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.
If your home catches fire, you can ask the responding firefighters to recover the safe.
2. Trustworthy
In reality, storing important documents in any type of safe is outdated and risky. Due to their physical form, paper documents always have a chance of getting destroyed, stolen, or lost.
To guarantee the protection of these critical documents, I recommend using our digital storage platform Trustworthy (click to try free). Trustworthy offers world-class, 256-bit AES encryption with two-factor authentication, plus many other security measures.
Trustworthy's Family Operating System® provides the easiest way to protect, organize, and share access to your most important information. Best of all, you never have to worry about losing your documents due to a fire or other disaster.
3. With a Friend or Family Member
For items such as spare house keys, it doesn’t make sense to keep them in a safety deposit box. Not only can they melt during a substantial fire, but banks are typically open only from around 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This is why I recommend giving your spare house keys to a trusted neighbor, friend, or family member in the event that you’re locked out of your house.
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