Which grade do you actually need
Two things decide it, and neither is the salesman: what your insurer will cover behind that grade, and what your national law demands if firearms are involved. Everything else — steel thickness, weight, the word “bank grade” — is decoration on top of those two answers.
Step one: what are you actually storing
| Contents | What decides the grade | The trap |
|---|---|---|
| Cash | The insurer's cash rating for that grade | Cash limits are far lower than people expect |
| Jewellery, watches | The valuables figure — a multiple of the cash rating | The multiple is not the same in every country |
| Firearms | National law first, insurer second | A cabinet that is legal in one country is illegal in the next |
| Documents, media | Fire rating — a separate test | Burglary and fire numbers get printed side by side and mean nothing to each other |
| Metal seed backups | Nothing official covers this yet | Insurers have no category for it; treat it as valuables and say so in writing |
Step two: your country
Open the one that applies. The figures are what the market publishes; the binding answer always comes from your own policy document.
United Kingdom — cash ratings, and the ×10 rule
British practice is the clearest in Europe: each grade carries a cash figure, and valuables are insured to roughly ten times that figure.
| Grade | Cash | Valuables |
|---|---|---|
| Grade 0 | £6,000 | £60,000 |
| Grade 1 | £10,000 | £100,000 |
| Grade 2 | £17,500 | £175,000 |
| Grade 5 | £100,000 | £1,000,000 |
Insurers lean on the AiS approved-safe scheme: a safe on that list is accepted without argument, one that is merely “tested to EN 1143-1” may not be.
Germany and Austria — recommendations, not promises
Here the published sums are explicitly non-binding recommendations for the two markets, and the multiplier is nothing like the British one: a grade insured for €10,000 in cash is typically quoted at only €20,000 in valuables — twofold, not tenfold.
That single difference is why “convert my UK figure to euros” is bad advice. The grade means the same thing physically; the money attached to it is a national convention.
VdS and ECB·S certificates are accepted across European insurers — VdS being the only DAkkS-accredited body in Germany for secure storage units.
Firearms in Germany — the law sets the floor
Section 36 of Germany's Weapons Act makes EN 1143-1 Grade 0 the legal minimum for firearms storage. Above ten handguns, Grade I. The old S1 and S2 cabinets are no longer accepted for new registrations.
This is a floor, not advice: your insurer may still want a higher grade for the value inside.
Slovenia — which certificates the authorities accept
When applying for a firearms permit, certification plates from VdS, ECB·S and IMP are accepted. Practical consequence: buy a safe whose plate carries one of those marks, and keep the certificate — the plate inside the door is what gets looked at.
United States — a different scale entirely
No EN grades here. The burglary scale is UL 687: TL-15, TL-30, TL-30x6, TRTL-30x6 — minutes of net working time against a listed tool set. Residential products carry UL 1037 RSC, which is five minutes against one person with hand tools; RSC II is ten.
American insurers usually work from the UL label plus the alarm and location, not from a published cash table. Ask the underwriter for the figure in writing before you buy.
Converting an insurance figure from one country to another — the multiplier differs, as the figures for the UK and Germany above show. And buying to the legal minimum when the contents are worth more than the grade covers: the safe is then legal and underinsured at the same time.
Step three: check the paper, not the sticker
- Find the plate inside the door It carries the standard, the grade, the certifying body, a traceable number, the weight and the year of manufacture. No plate — no grade, whatever the brochure says.
- Ask whether the certificate is a T2 one Since 2019 the standard has an option for a harsher tool set. Against it, some models rate up to two grades lower than their older paperwork suggests. Details here.
- Send the grade to your insurer before paying In writing, with the model designation. The figure they answer with is the only one that matters on the day of a claim.
- Keep the certificate with your policy, not in the safe Obvious once stated, and routinely ignored.