Safe deposit lockers – are they insured?
On 18th November 2024 robbers decamped with 19kg of gold ornaments valued at Rs. 13 crore kept in the strongroom of the State Bank of India (SBI) branch of Rayaparthy village.
Rayaparthy is a village and a mandal in Warangal district in the state of Telangana, India.
The stolen jewellery was not from private safe deposit lockers, but gold mortgaged by customers. CCTV cameras and the alarm were disabled; the robbers entered the bank by cutting open the rear door and windows, the strongroom grill and lockers with the help of a simple gas cutting machine. The branch has no security guard, and the building is located at an isolated place off the main road.
“The stolen jewellery was not from private lockers, but gold mortgaged by customers.”
This is the key statement for insurance payout. If valuables from the private lockers are lost to such a robbery, the customers get nothing as private lockers are not insured. The bank will not be responsible.
If the jewellery is mortgaged one, then the customers may get the value through the bank; this payout is a complicated one and takes time. Precious stones mounted on the jewellery and the antique value of the jewellery are lost forever.
But why are private safe deposit lockers not covered by insurance?
Safe deposit lockers in banks are completely private, and the contents of which are known only by the individual renting out these lockers. As such, there is no way to verify the value of the contents by the bank or the insurer. Hence, these are excluded from insurance coverage.
Moral of the story is: Valuables stored in the lockers are not safe as they cannot be insured. In case of a robbery, the owner gets nothing and bears the full loss.
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