Most people treat the bank locker as a closed matter. The rent gets debited, the key goes into a drawer, and nobody looks inside for years. A spouse may once in a while visit the bank to get jewellery to wear during occasional family functions. That’s it, but in the majority of cases, lockers remain untouched (read: inactive) for years.
But this habit can be expensive. Paying locker rent every year doesn’t mean your valuables are safe. What people don’t understand is that when it comes to bank lockers, your relationship with the bank is just that of lessor and lessee. You are just renting a box. The bank isn’t your custodian, and more importantly, it does not know what’s inside the box, and hence, it has no obligation to insure the contents. Read the previous line again.
And when it comes to the safety of bank lockers, while generally things are safe, there is are news floating around about what could go wrong. Don’t take my word for it. Just do a simple Google search for “bank locker fraud” or “bank locker loss”, and you will find hundreds of such stories. Cash eaten by termites, jewellery missing, customers fighting banks for years over what was or wasn’t inside.
In cases like these, the cash shouldn’t have been there at all. Cash is not allowed in lockers. If it turns up during a break-open, you can land in tax and legal scrutiny on top of the loss. But that is the point. People who park cash in a locker are the people who stop thinking about it.
Bank Owes You Less Than What You Assume
If contents are lost to bank negligence, employee fraud, fire or building collapse, the bank’s liability is generally limited to 100 times the annual locker rent. So on a Rs 3000 locker rent, that comes to Rs 3 lakh, even if you kept gold jewellery worth Rs 50 lakh. Floods, earthquakes, lightning and other acts of God are generally not covered at all.
So the only real monitoring system is you.
Don’t Wait. Check Frequently.
- Every year that you don’t go and check your locker, you lose the chance to catch any damage early. So here is what you should try doing:
- Visit and check your bank locker at least once or twice a year. If need be, put a calendar reminder for this.
- Treat every locker visit like an audit. Take a timestamped photo at entry, a photo of whatever you add or remove, and a final photo before you lock up.
- Keep the visit slips and the SMS alerts. In a dispute, this trail will matter more than your word.
- Look at the total value inside. If it is far above 100 times your rent, the gap is yours to carry, so split valuables across lockers or banks. And/or consider buying an insurance cover that the bank won’t give you. Some insurers offer locker-specific policies, and home insurance with a jewellery rider is another route.