Insurance beyond industry norms
Silver Bullion has an insurance standard that far exceeds the industry norms. We have invested a high effort in providing our customers with the best possible protection for their deposits and are proud of the high level of security we have created.
Silver Bullion's founder, Gregor Gregersen, explains the importance of vaulting insurance for the complete protection of your gold and silver bullion.
Our Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium Insurance
Vault insurance - which is referred to as liability protection when applied to your bullion - mirrors the risks involved with storing bullion, and thus your bullion is covered for:
- Third party thefts - covered by fire and theft insurance
- Inside jobs - covered by infidelity insurance
- Unknown cause losses - covered by Mysterious Disappearance insurance
Mysterious disappearance covers losses that cannot be otherwise explained and cannot be substantiated by police, thereby requiring the insurance to be extraordinarily confident in a vaulting company's operations. All Gold, Silver, Platinum and Palladium is stored at The Safe House and includes Mysterious Disappearance insurance.
Do not be misled by the industry term "All Risks". In insurance parlance, the term "All Risks" refers to a type of insurance which covers against all risks, unless excluded on a list within the policy. Therefore, without a list of exclusions, the term 'All Risks' is effectively meaningless. Mysterious Disappearance is typically not covered by most vaults.
The current insurance coverage is up to the amount of SGD 1 billion for any one loss. An insurance certificate or direct policy will provide information on the coverage. View the Insurance Certificate for Bullion Storage at The Safe House.
Our Nickel and Cobalt Insurance
As TSH does not have the vaulting capacity to store bulk metals these metals are stored at London Metal Exchange (LME) licensed warehouses that are in close proximity to the port. LME warehouses do not normally provide insurance for bulk metals stored there.
We have obtained insurance to cover the Cobalt and Nickel Stored at the LME Singapore warehouse through our primary policy. The insurance has a standard coverage including Theft and Inside Jobs.
Security and Pretend Security
While vaults visits are necessarily subject to certain restrictions the unglamorous reality of the bullion storage industry is that security is often used as a pretext to hide inconvenient or even fraudulent realities that have nothing to do with security.
Such faux security might be used to hide the fact that storage is outsourced to third parties that do not allow visits; or that it is stored in a manner of condition that is embarrassing to show; or the bullion might not be present in the first place.
Practical vault security encompasses three primary controllable risk factors:
- Prevention of Third Party Theft - Assessed and covered by Theft Insurance
- Prevention of Inside Jobs - Assessed and covered by Infidelity Insurance
- Prevention of Operational Errors - Assessed and covered by Mysterious Disappearance
While most people tend to think of theft by outsiders as the biggest insurance problem, in a place as intrinsically safe as Singapore, outside theft tends to be the least likely of the three risks mentioned above. Infidelity and Mysterious Disappearance are more important concerns, emphasizing the importance of strict processes, internal checks and third party auditing checks to prevent loss of bullion.
Needless to say, a facility's security rating is not based on how well the facility is hidden from its customers - a clear security as pretext sign- but is assessed by the facility’s insurance underwriter(s) who, by being required to pay on an insured loss, have a keen interest to comprehensively evaluate and price the facility’s storage risks and determine the extent and costs of the insurance policy.
Such security assessments are conducted by "Species Inspectors" whose feedback then determines insurance eligibility and costs. Vault procedures that minimize the possibility of operational errors and maximize transparency through redundant checks, division of roles, and effective internal monitoring form a large part of this assessment.
The Safe House SG - The most advanced vault
Our vault, The Safe House, which is a subsidiary of Silver Bullion Pte Ltd, received a "No Improvement Required Recommendation" grading from the species inspectors (who conducted the assessment on behalf of a policy underwriter).
This being the highest assessment grade, it allowed us to cover our storage customers against the aforementioned “mysterious disappearance” at a reasonable rate. This assessment was made partly due to "BlueSys", our vault management system that resides on our secured offline network and controls every vault movement.
The Safe House SG
BlueSys divides vault staff into three independent functional groups as follows:
- Secure Logistics: Staff that interacts with customers and transactees
- Vault Operations: Staff that handles bullion and crypto
- Security: Auxiliary police officer(s) that identifies visitors and provides armed security
BlueSys further splits vault operations, such as a bullion deposit, into sub-tasks which we call "tickets" that must be performed in sequence by the functional groups in a manner that ensures checks and balances designed to minimize errors and ensure process adherence.
The Safe House processes are ISO 9001 certified and it is licensed by Singapore Customs as a tax-free storage zone allowing us to store items tax free that would normally be taxable in Singapore.
In addition, The Safe House has an integrated DUX testing laboratory to test incoming bullion and EV (electric vehicle) metals and offers fully insurable Safe Deposit Boxes for customers up to 202 kg storage capacity.
The BlueSys was developed by Little Bit Pte Ltd, the software development subsidiary of Silver Bullion. The BlueSys was extended to implement the Gregersen-Gono Physical Crypto Storage Standard in 2018 allowing for Insured Crypto Storage.