Safe as houses? People looking for alternatives to under-the-mattress stashes and banks are keeping suppliers of home safes busy, writes CONOR POPE
SUPPLIERS of home safes across the State have seen a spike in business in recent months, with some customers prepared to spend anywhere between €50 and €5,000 because they are concerned about the wellbeing of the Republic’s banks.
Another factor that has seen safe sales surge has been the increasing popularity of cash-for-gold offers, as there is a perception that criminals are likely to ignore televisions and stereos in favour of smaller items of jewellery with a perceived higher value that they can offload easily.
Michael Williams of Fogarty Lock Safe in Dublin city centre says his business is now fitting more home safes than commercial ones and many customers are buying them for insurance purposes.
Standard home safes costing €300 are insured to hold €5,000 in cash or €15,000 in jewellery. “From what we are hearing the insurance companies are tightening up their rules because of increasing burglaries and because of the growing prevalence of cash-for-gold services,” he says.
AllSafes.ie is another provider, based in Duleek, Co Meath. It has seen sales of home safes increase by 80 per cent in the last year and company owner Neil Donnelly says some customers have specifically cited concerns over the future of Irish banks when ordering.
While money is undoubtedly more secure in a safe than in a tin box under a bed, the trend raises similar problems. First, but not necessarily foremost, money stored in a safe might be secure, but it is dead in the sense that it is not earning anything through interest.
Of even greater concern, however, is the temptation safes filled with valuables pose to criminals.
A Garda spokesman says that while it has no specific advice for homeowners investing in safes, the general advice it to not keep large amounts of cash at home.
The growing popularity of home safes is not unique to the Republic. In the US, makers of home safes have reported dramatic increases in sales prompted by the mortgage crisis, the recession, and several natural disasters.
“We’re hearing a lot of people say they are closing their safety deposit boxes and bringing their valuables and important papers closer to home, where they can get their hands on them quickly,” a spokesman for one manufacturer told the New York Times.
The spokesman for Liberty Safes said sales of residential boxes had increased by 40 per cent since 2009 and gone up 25 per cent in the first three months of this year. There was an increasing trend, he said, of people buying safes to store gold and silver that they had bought as a hedge against the dollar.
