How safe are your belongings in storage? While storing your belongings in a self-storage facility is an extremely convenient way to clear items from your home or office, it can be difficult to tell exactly how secure your unit actually is.
Not all facilities are made the same. Some will be extremely secure, whereas others may have dubious security measures in place that would risk your belongings.
In the past three years, there have been multiple catastrophic fires in storage facilities resulting in many people losing everything they had in storage. What’s worse, many people had no insurance or a basic policy that didn’t cover the value of their belongings, which only further highlights how important it is to check the safety of your facility and to cover yourself from unexpected incidents.
Here, we’ve highlighted a few ways to ensure your belongings will be as secure as possible when in storage.
1) Facility Security
First, check the security the facility actually has in place. Things you should look for include:
- A fenced perimeter
- CCTV
- A 24/7 manned presence
- Logbook to sign visitors in and out
If the facility you are looking at storing your belongings with has all of these features, you can be confident that your items will be safer there. However, if you arrive at a storage facility and find very few signs of security on the premises, you may not want to leave your belongings in their hands.
2) Your Own Lock
Investing in a lock for your unit is a great idea to keep your belongings as safe as possible. A sturdy lock will deter any opportunists from attempting to break into your unit, so it’s a good idea to go for a strong lock that looks as effective as it is.
We’d recommend opting for a disc or cylinder-shaped lock that is resistant to bolt cutters.
3) Inventory
Your storage unit may keep an inventory of your belongings, but we’d also recommend keeping your own inventory of exactly what you have stored in your unit.
If you are storing away a lot of belongings for a long period of time, it will be easy to forget exactly what you have in your unit. An inventory will enable you to easily identify any wrongdoing, and will also help if you need to claim on your insurance.
4) Contents Of Your Unit
It is also a good idea to consider the contents of your unit when considering how secure your belongings will actually be.
Some items are prohibited from storage units. It’s essential that you check to make sure you are not accidentally storing anything that comes under these labels. These materials not only risk you voiding your insurance policy, but could also wreak havoc amongst the other items you have contained in your unit.
5) Insure Your Belongings
Finally, insuring your belongings when putting them in storage is a practical way of ensuring that their value is covered should anything happen to your unit.
For many storage facilities, insurance is a mandatory requirement, but our customers save up to three times the cost by buying insurance with us over going directly with their storage provider. With policies to cover you for theft, vandalism, accidental damage and more, this is an affordable and sensible step to ensuring the safety of your belongings when in storage.
Find out more about our storage insurance now.