Protect What Cannot Be Replaced

Whether you live in a flat, a condo, a single-family house, a mobile house, or a manor, it is important to keep you and your family comfortable and safe. After all, your home should always make you feel safe and secure at all the time. 

The most common recommendations for homeowners are to keep your doors and windows locked when not at home, to avoid letting strangers into your home, and installing home safety features such as smoke and fire detectors and motion sensors. Don’t you think it is important to protect what cannot be replaced?

However, it is also worth noting that what you keep inside your home may also put you and your family at risk. Valuable and irreplaceable items such as heirlooms, jewellery, and important documents may require safety deposit box solutions away from your home. One of the best ways you can protect your home is by understanding the dangers of keeping items at home that are of high value and what you can do to prevent property crime or damage at home. Below are some of the risks associated with keeping valuable items at home:

Home Invasions

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) defines home invasions or break-ins as, “an act of unauthorised forced entry into a home or other place where a person permanently resides.” In a report the ABS published in 2018, they found that that between 2016 and 2017, a total of 228,300 Australian households experienced at least one incident of attempted break-in.

Other Characteristic statistics of these break-ins are:

– the majority of households had property stolen (74% or 169,000 households)

– a quarter of households had personal items stolen (29% or 66,900 households)

– just under half of households had property damaged (49% or 111,200 households)

Violent Robbery

Robbery or acts of stealing (or attempting to steal) property from a person by physically attacking them or threatening them with force or violence is also a common risk associated with keeping items at home.

Reports from the ABS indicate that 72,200 Australians above the age of 15 have experienced at least one incident of robbery between 2016 and 2017.

Fire

According to the Country Fire Authority, there were 1,588 preventable house fires that caused more than $42 million in property damage in 2018. The top causes of these preventable fires include the kitchen, followed by lounge rooms, bedrooms, chimneys and then garages.

Meanwhile, ABC News reported in March of 2018 that 18 homes were damaged in Victoria during the worst bushfire of the season.

Flood

Australia has always been vulnerable to floods with the earliest recorded notable flooding happening in 1806 in Maitland, NSW.

In recent history, one of the most costly flood happened in Ipswich and Brisbane in January 2011. Geoscience Australia notes that, “This flooding resulted in a cost of A$6.64 billion (2013 Australian dollars, including deaths and injuries but excluding most indirect losses).”

Preventing Property Crime and Damage with Safe Deposit Boxes

Today, one of the best ways to avoid the dangers of keeping items at home is by renting a safety deposit box from a secure storage facility. This is especially advised in the case of storing gold bullion and investing in precious metals. While many investors opt to have a small amount of gold close at hand in case of emergencies, it’s still wiser to keep the majority of your physical assets in a safe private facility.

At Private Vaults Australia, we ensure the protection of your valuable items with multiple layers of state-of-the-art security in Brisbane’s only flood-free safe deposit box facility. 

Learn more about how to protect what cannot be replaced by contacting PVA or read the PVA blog for more interesting news, tips and ideas to guide you.