Question Two — What Does the Insurance Actually Cover?

The phrase appears on every vault website and means nothing on its own. A policy with a low aggregate limit, broad exclusions, or the vault rather than the client as beneficiary can all be described as fully insured while leaving a client materially unprotected.

Insurance also has to survive the moments when metal is moving. Cover that applies while items are in the vault may not apply during collection, delivery or transfer between facilities, and those are the points at which a loss is most likely to occur.

• Who is the underwriter?
• What is the aggregate limit, and how does it relate to total metal stored?
• What is excluded — war, terrorism, employee dishonesty, mysterious disappearance?
• Am I a named insured or is the vault?
• Can I arrange my own separate coverage?

Who insures the metal, for what value, on what basis, whether cover extends to transit and in which directions, and what the exclusions are. Then whether you can see evidence of the cover rather than a description of it.

Storage liability is not insurance and the two are frequently presented in language that blurs them. If a facility cannot produce evidence of cover, that is a material fact about the arrangement.

1. 01Coverage is available through Lloyd's of London and arranged with you.
2. 02It is a separate arrangement rather than something bundled and unexamined.
3. 03We will tell you plainly what it does and does not cover.
4. 04You may arrange your own coverage instead or in addition.

FDIC insurance is irrelevant here and it is worth being blunt: it covers bank deposits, not property in a vault. No vault contents anywhere are FDIC insured, including in a bank branch. Anyone implying otherwise is confusing you, deliberately or not.

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