A safe is a safe is a safe; all that changes between home and office safes is the size; right? Wrong. There are a number of major differences between safes manufactured for use in the home and those made for office use.

Contents

The moist obvious difference between home and office safes is what is stored in them. Home safes are for personal possessions such as watches, jewellery, cash and personal documents; office safes are for sensitive and valuable data, quotes, plans and perhaps cash.

Size

Office safes may need to contain valuable items for an entire business and a number of individuals; consequently they will usually need to be larger than home safes. This has implications for where the safe may be located.

Who is to have access

A business safe will normally need to be accessed by more than one individual. It may be that quite a few people will need to be able to access the safe. This increases security risks and as a consequence there may be issues regarding insurance. This is quite different to a home safe where access is normally restricted to one or two people.

Location

Because it is usually comparatively small a home safe can be located in a number of different places. Floor mounted, wall mounted, under floorboards or undercarpet and set in concrete, home safes provide a number of options. They can also be concealed in walls, floors or in furniture. Office safes, because they are larger and will usually need to be accessed by a number of people, are not so versatile and may need to be located in a secure room or even an open space or the office of a senior member of staff.

Insurance

The Eurograde System sets limits to the value of contents that can be safely stored in a safe. Each safe under the System is given a rating from zero to six, zero offering the least resistance to physical attack and six the highest. Insurance companies will need to know what “cash rating” a safe broken into carried and if the amount of the claim is in excess of what that rating is assessed to offer then a claim may fail.

Getting it right

It can be seen that choosing either a home or office safe is not quite as easy as it looks. Fortunately there are many companies such as https://www.securesafe.co.uk/ that can offer consultancy as well as solutions.