The Critical Reason for Vault Storage That Everyone Overlooks

GoldSilver Team
DEC 22, 2017

Gold and silver are your financial backstop. Your core strategy to profit from the upcoming wealth transfer.

What’s ahead will be very exciting for those that have a meaningful stash of physical gold and silver. Imagine as the next crisis worsens, your net worth soars.

But what happens to your plan if your bullion is stolen? Or gets misplaced? What if it falls into middle earth from an earthquake or is washed away in a flood? Gold usually survives the average house fire—but what condition would it be left in? A dealer won’t pay as much for damaged metal, and some may not buy it at all.

The dilemma with holding physical gold and silver is that no storage plan is 100% foolproof. And since bullion comes with no replacement policy—no claim check you can turn in to get your metal back—the investor is left in a precarious position. Are we just out of luck?

While the risk of these events is slim, they can be devastating if they occur. How do we protect against worst case scenarios?

There’s only one viable solution…

Insurance: the Ultimate Backstop

It’s a sobering reality: if your gold or silver is lost—regardless of how or why or from where—it’s gone for good. You simply have no way to make yourself whole.

It would be the ultimate injustice to go to great lengths accumulating physical metal for both protection and profit—and then see it disappear in one mishap.

The only way to make up for the loss at that point is if you have insurance.

When the topic of insuring gold comes up, most people assume they can just add it to their homeowner’s policy. Or maybe even take out a separate insurance policy.

But there are two major pitfalls with that route. See if you’re comfortable with the risks…

1. Home insurance policies for gold are usually very expensive.

Consider the cost of insuring your home-stored gold:

Premiums are usually exorbitant—2% or more of the value annually, according to our survey. That’s a pricy add-on, especially when you consider…
Policies almost never cover a rise in the gold price. If your gold is stolen and the price is over $2,000/ounce at the time, will you be fully compensated? Answer: No. Replacement value lies with the original appraisal (unless you’re able to build it into the policy, which would make it even more expensive). If gold reaches $5,000 you won’t be very happy when they hand you a check for $1,300 per ounce.
Insurance typically won’t cover negligence on your part, acts of God, and terrorism. And be careful with that “negligence” part: “I’m sorry sir, but you didn’t take reasonable safeguards with your metal so we consider that negligence. Claim denied.”

There’s another reason we shy away from taking out an insurance policy on home-stored bullion…

2. Home insurance breaks the one-confidant rule.

To insure your metals means you will be required to reveal to strangers the details of your bullion holdings—the forms of gold and silver you own, how many ounces, and where and how they’re stored.

Are you comfortable revealing all the details of your gold and silver to insurance agents, appraisers, corporate offices, and even office staff?
How secure is their paperwork and digital record of your policy, and who has access to it?
How confident are you that absolutely no one in this chain of people will never mention it to absolutely anyone?

Once you go down the path of releasing the details of your home-stored bullion, how this information is used and who has access to it is out of your control.

An insurance policy can protect you from one set of risks, but shouldn’t expose you to others. This makes home insurance plans unacceptable to us.

So if you want to insure your metal, how do you get it at a reasonable cost and yet avoid these additional risks?

GoldSilver’s Allocated Storage Program: the Ultimate Insurance Policy

When you chose allocated storage at checkout, your holdings are automatically insured. No extra paperwork, no extra scrutiny, no break from confidentiality.

The benefits of our insured storage program would be critical in a time you need it most:

Full Insurance: Your gold and silver are insured for full replacement value, up to $50 million per account. Try getting a home insurance policy for that amount—even if you could the cost would be prohibitive.
No storage location in the world is 100% secure from threats like natural disasters, but professional storage with GoldSilver is 100% insured.
Independent Audits. Your holdings are audited by a top accounting firm and verified regularly. You receive custody certificates documenting your holdings, and of course can log on to view your account 24/7.
Very Affordable: Your storage fee is just 0.06% of the metal value per month, $4 monthly minimum, per customer account. It covers storage, insurance, auditing, and accounting. It is, on average, less than half of what a home insurance policy costs. Check out this fun table of how the costs compare to a cappuccino and movie ticket (scroll down).
Fully Allocated: The gold and silver you buy is shipped directly to storage, and held in full in your account’s name and title (individually, joint, trust, or LLC). No pool accounts, no shared ownership, no fractional claims on large bars—just what you bought, in your title, all the time.

The reality is, our allocated storage program is far cheaper than insuring home-stored bullion, much safer, and can be just as private.

As Mike explains in this short video, he uses allocated storage primarily because his holdings are out of the house, and are fully insured.

Keeping some bullion close at hand is important. You should have a little readily accessible in the event of an economic or personal emergency. A financial “go bag” if you will. Secure it properly, and tell only one other confidant where it’s located.

However, storing all your tangible assets at home or in a bank automatically pushes your risk quotient much higher.

The bottom line is, you have no control, and little recourse, should you become the victim of theft or natural disaster. In the event you are robbed at gunpoint, wouldn’t it be nice to know your gold is safe and sound and available to sell or take delivery with a few clicks?

Get Started with Insured Storage

We believe every investor should use professional storage once they have a small stash close to home, and we’ve made it as affordable as possible to get started. And all vaults automatically come with full insurance.

Get started now…