10 Best Things to Keep in a Safe Deposit Box
As digital records and cloud storage become the norm, the stodgy safe deposit box is under threat to join our growing list of things that will soon disappear forever. "They're probably going to be extinct at some point," says Michele Awash, a certified financial planner with Family Office Solutions in Greenville, Del. "Everything is electronic these days."
But don't rush to declare the safe deposit box a relic of the past just yet. You still need to be able to produce certain original documents, rather than digital scans or photocopies, and some valuables simply can't be digitized.
Installing a safe in your home is one alternative to a safe deposit box, but they aren't foolproof, says Luke W. Reynolds, Chief of the FDIC's Community Outreach Section. Home safes are more susceptible to fire and water damage, not to mention theft, than bank safe deposit boxes, he says.
"Personally, I use both," says William P. Simons IV, president and CEO of Rust Insurance Agency in
