Quote:
Originally Posted by
GQgeek 
How would an employee get access to a box? It seems to me that that would be a very very rare occurrence (much less likely than a robbery or fire at your home). When I got mine, I was given what i was told were the only two keys. If I lose them they will charge me to drill the lock. The lock also requires a bank employee to use a separate key, which most people don't have access to.
I store my documents/cash within freezer ziplock bags. I started doing that not because of flood risk, but because I read a bbc article about a guy in india that had his whole life savings in a safe deposit box and termites ate his cash. It's a remote possibility but I figured it costs me nothing to put everything in thick plastic bags.
It'd be a rare probability but it has been known to happen. The point was that assuming the probability of theft, damage or destruction to be zero was a bad idea and that valuables still need to be insured.
Not all bank safe deposit box systems look like the fancy ones in the movies like Oceans 11/12. The ones I have used operate like a parking tower. After clearing security, you select a booth, lock it and insert your security card. The box then is retrieved from several stories below and is opened with your key.