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Call Us: + 353 (01) 7076011

  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Guide To European Certification
  • Insurance Rates (ISRG)
  • Advice Videos
  • Lock Videos
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  • Blog
AIS Safe Rating List

ESSA Warning Re: AiS Safe Rating List

Alan Redd
02.08.2023

For those unfamiliar with the Association of Insurance Surveyors Safe Rating List, it is the most frequently recommended reference document in the UK, for supposedly ensuring a safe is suitable for a level of risk, in relation to cash or jewellery cover.

Until 2018, the document even stated it was: “appropriate for use in the Republic of Eire” despite its inclusion of recommended insurance rates for untested safes and second-hand safes that have been proven to contain asbestos.

The following quote found between page (2) and (4) of any published version of the AIS “Safe Rating List”, aptly sums up what the list is all about:

"There are still some safes manufactured in the UK which are not tested and the Committee has impressed on these companies that they should have their safes tested by an approved test house. However, for the benefit of members, the Committee has provided a cash rating for the untested safes from these companies based on information provided by them."

Apparently, nobody at the AiS thought awarding rates to completely untested safes to “benefit” its UK members was an issue, while the fact that European safe manufacturers have to produce accredited certification documents to be given rates in the list and UK manufacturers clearly do not, does not seem to have rung any alarm bells regarding competition law.

Of course, we still have to ask how a list that recommends insurance rates for completely untested safes, as well as hundreds of second-hand safes that should be presumed to contain asbestos, has been taken seriously by many insurers in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, even being referred to by major insurance companies and referenced in CPD accredited insurance seminars?

Having talked with many insurers I can tell you that most have never seen or read a published version of the list, while many in Ireland have inferred from the title that the list is a UK insurance industry document, and not in fact one with its origin in a small group, mainly composed of people involved in new and second-hand safe sales.

Imagine the reaction a consumer might have, if they were to learn that a safe they purchased to protect substantial valuables or family heirlooms, based on a recommended insurance rating in the AIS Safe Rating List, was never tested for burglary resistance in anyway whatsoever, or worse still, contains asbestos.

Is it any wonder the content of the AIS Safe Rating List is restricted from the public?

Link to a letter issued by European Security Systems Association (ESSA) e. V. on the 25th verifying many of these factshttps://certifiedsafesireland....