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NYT article describing your exact point on the perils of bank safe deposit boxes https://web.archive.org/web/20230108123245/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/

NYT article describing your exact point on the perils of bank safe deposit boxes https://web.archive.org/web/20230108123245/https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/business/safe-deposit-box-theft.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230108123245/https://www.nytim... Edit: HN discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20545276 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20545276

tristor 3y ago
To expand on this, generally if you have an itemized insurance rider for personal property on your homeowner's insurance or renter's insurance, everything is covered, but anything stored offsite such as a storage unit or safe deposit box is only insured to a small percentage (10% or less usually) of the total general unscheduled property coverage and cannot be covered with a scheduled/itemized rider. This combined with the shady way banks treat safe deposit boxes means that ironically in the case of /anything/ short of a flood or fire, you are better off having a safe at home vs a safe deposit box, even for insurables like guns/jewelry/collectibles. A safe deposit box /might/ be marginally better for backup drives and paperwork simply because it's offsite, but a 3-2-1 (one is none, 2 is one) policy/process is better. This really sucks for paperwork because the government is stupid and usually only the actual original matters (e.g. signed marriage license or birth certificate) and certified copies aren't sufficient. I HIGHLY recommend anyone who wants to be an actual responsible adult to buy a /real/ safe for their home and stick the things that will utterly destroy their life if they're lost/stolen/destroyed into that safe, and keep a spare key/combo to it with whoever is the executor of their will/estate. Nearly every person in America over the age of 30 has tens of thousands of dollars in valuables worth protecting, they just may not think of it as that. It's something like the deed to your house & the associated title and mortgage paperwork, your car titles, insurance policy information for valuables, your marriage license, your passport & birth certificate or other identifying documents, etc. This stuff is absolutely worth protecting, and the dinky "document safe" for $30 at Walmart isn't going to do jack shit. EDIT: Edit to add that a real safe doesn't have to be $35k. I bought a huge safe when I did it. If you want a small fire-rated Class B TL-30 safe that weighs in the neighborhood of 500-800 pounds, can hold most things other than rifles/shotguns/long-guns, you can find something decent for less than $5k without much trouble, which is around what it costs for a "nicer" "gun safe" at bass pro anyway.
- nicenewtemp84 3y ago
  When you include car titles, something people lose constantly and costs $15 to replace at the DMV... It makes me wonder about all the other things you listed being easy to replace also and you're just trying to explain why you got a safe for paperwork. My mother guards her social security card and passport like they are the keys to life. She was absolutely shocked that I let a scooter rental shop in Vietnam hold my passport as collateral. People lose or get robbed of everything important all the time. There's a process for everything. I rather not worry and just live my life and deal with things as they come, not worrying so much.
  - tristor 3y ago
    > People lose or get robbed of everything important all the time. There's a process for everything. I rather not worry and just live my life and deal with things as they come, not worrying so much. You have a much rosier picture of things than I have. I have had to learn the hard way about some of these things, it sounds like you've been lucky so get to be happy-go-lucky. I hope you continue to have good luck in your life. Car titles are only easy to replace while you retain possession of the vehicle and are the recorded owner in the DMV database. If someone steals the car + title (which happened to me once when I foolishly did what many people do and left the title in the glove box), they can easily re-register the vehicle to themselves and you have basically no recourse unless you can conclusively prove they forged your signature or fraudulently registered the vehicle. Once the successfully record the title change you are pretty screwed, as the saying goes "possession is 9/10s of the law", and it's sadly pretty true. You'd think reporting a car stolen to the police would block someone re-registering it, but that wasn't the case then. It was over 15 years ago, maybe things are better now as much vehicles are electronically titled, but I'd still recommend not losing it. Maybe my viewpoint is simply a matter of age. Things are much more electronic now and paperwork is less important because there are electronic records. On the flip side, if the electronic records are wrong, sometimes paperwork is the only thing you have to prove that.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      If you call police and report your car stolen the next day it is stolen - police report will be your argument and you not only will get your car back, also whoever re-registered vehicle will go to jail (also a state Notary who verified forged signature will go to jail as well) most stolen cars go to spare parts or export to Global South as junk/scrap and you can't do that without DMV re-registration. if you truly have modern car (like BMW 2017 or newer), then you can just disable and lock it remotely from an app, and geolocate it.

tristor 3y ago

To expand on this, generally if you have an itemized insurance rider for personal property on your homeowner's insurance or renter's insurance, everything is covered, but anything stored offsite such as a storage unit or safe deposit box is only insured to a small percentage (10% or less usually) of the total general unscheduled property coverage and cannot be covered with a scheduled/itemized rider. This combined with the shady way banks treat safe deposit boxes means that ironically in the case of /anything/ short of a flood or fire, you are better off having a safe at home vs a safe deposit box, even for insurables like guns/jewelry/collectibles. A safe deposit box /might/ be marginally better for backup drives and paperwork simply because it's offsite, but a 3-2-1 (one is none, 2 is one) policy/process is better. This really sucks for paperwork because the government is stupid and usually only the actual original matters (e.g. signed marriage license or birth certificate) and certified copies aren't sufficient. I HIGHLY recommend anyone who wants to be an actual responsible adult to buy a /real/ safe for their home and stick the things that will utterly destroy their life if they're lost/stolen/destroyed into that safe, and keep a spare key/combo to it with whoever is the executor of their will/estate. Nearly every person in America over the age of 30 has tens of thousands of dollars in valuables worth protecting, they just may not think of it as that. It's something like the deed to your house & the associated title and mortgage paperwork, your car titles, insurance policy information for valuables, your marriage license, your passport & birth certificate or other identifying documents, etc. This stuff is absolutely worth protecting, and the dinky "document safe" for $30 at Walmart isn't going to do jack shit. EDIT: Edit to add that a real safe doesn't have to be $35k. I bought a huge safe when I did it. If you want a small fire-rated Class B TL-30 safe that weighs in the neighborhood of 500-800 pounds, can hold most things other than rifles/shotguns/long-guns, you can find something decent for less than $5k without much trouble, which is around what it costs for a "nicer" "gun safe" at bass pro anyway.

nicenewtemp84 3y ago
When you include car titles, something people lose constantly and costs $15 to replace at the DMV... It makes me wonder about all the other things you listed being easy to replace also and you're just trying to explain why you got a safe for paperwork. My mother guards her social security card and passport like they are the keys to life. She was absolutely shocked that I let a scooter rental shop in Vietnam hold my passport as collateral. People lose or get robbed of everything important all the time. There's a process for everything. I rather not worry and just live my life and deal with things as they come, not worrying so much.
- tristor 3y ago
  > People lose or get robbed of everything important all the time. There's a process for everything. I rather not worry and just live my life and deal with things as they come, not worrying so much. You have a much rosier picture of things than I have. I have had to learn the hard way about some of these things, it sounds like you've been lucky so get to be happy-go-lucky. I hope you continue to have good luck in your life. Car titles are only easy to replace while you retain possession of the vehicle and are the recorded owner in the DMV database. If someone steals the car + title (which happened to me once when I foolishly did what many people do and left the title in the glove box), they can easily re-register the vehicle to themselves and you have basically no recourse unless you can conclusively prove they forged your signature or fraudulently registered the vehicle. Once the successfully record the title change you are pretty screwed, as the saying goes "possession is 9/10s of the law", and it's sadly pretty true. You'd think reporting a car stolen to the police would block someone re-registering it, but that wasn't the case then. It was over 15 years ago, maybe things are better now as much vehicles are electronically titled, but I'd still recommend not losing it. Maybe my viewpoint is simply a matter of age. Things are much more electronic now and paperwork is less important because there are electronic records. On the flip side, if the electronic records are wrong, sometimes paperwork is the only thing you have to prove that.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    If you call police and report your car stolen the next day it is stolen - police report will be your argument and you not only will get your car back, also whoever re-registered vehicle will go to jail (also a state Notary who verified forged signature will go to jail as well) most stolen cars go to spare parts or export to Global South as junk/scrap and you can't do that without DMV re-registration. if you truly have modern car (like BMW 2017 or newer), then you can just disable and lock it remotely from an app, and geolocate it.