Home safe, allocated vault, or unallocated account — the trade-offs of every option for storing physical bullion.
Where to keep your bullion is the question every new buyer underestimates. The answers reduce to three: at home, with a third-party allocated vault, or in an unallocated pool.
Home storage is free, immediate, and exposes you fully to theft, fire and insurance limits. A good safe rated to TRTL-30 or higher, bolted into a concrete floor, will cover modest holdings. Most household insurers cap precious-metal cover well below the value of even a small bullion stack — speak to your broker before relying on a standard policy.
“Home storage is free, immediate, and exposes you fully to theft, fire and insurance limits.”
Allocated vault storage means specific bars or coins are held in your name in a high-security facility, fully insured, with annual audit. This is what we offer at Optima. Allocated bullion is not on the custodian's balance sheet — if the custodian fails, your metal is yours.
Unallocated storage is cheapest but is, technically, a creditor's claim against the storage provider's metal pool. We do not recommend it for retail clients.
