Buying a safe for your business can be a daunting task, there are so many places you can buy a safe, there are so many kinds of safes to choose from, and there are many safes on the market that will not provide the proper protection.

The first step in selecting the proper safe, is choosing where you will buy it, your choices are many, however choosing the right one could save your business.

Many businesses use incorrectly rated safes for overnight storage of money, and other valuables, some store records in a non-fire rated container, others store sensitive and fragile computer media in the wrong kind of fire container. Choose the wrong kind of safe for burglary, or fire protection and you could lose all that is valuable to your business, and your insurance company may refuse to pay your claim.

Statistics show that if a company's records are lost in a fire, 17% can no longer furnish a financial statement, 14% suffer a reduction in credit rating and 43% go out of business completely. No home or business is safe from fire.

How are you going to get information on what is the correct protection for your needs? I recommend a professional safe retailer, or professional locksmith who also sells safes, these businesses buy and sell safes everyday, they are educated, trained and have access to every kind of safe and security container available. They are the experts. Are you going to gamble that you are getting the proper protection, on the recommendation of a minimum wage "big box retailer" clerk?

What items do you need to protect, what do you want to protect them from, what will be kept in the safe and when, does your insurance company require a particular fire or burglary rating, what size safe do you need? These are just a few of the questions you will need to answer in order to properly choose your safe. Getting the correct answers to these questions will save you time, money and possibly even your business.

If your primary concern is the protection of records and customer files from fire, you may not even need a safe, a fire rated filing cabinet may fill your needs better. Fire files and safes are rated by the length of time that they are tested to maintain the interior of the container below the temperature at which paper will char or begin to burn. Common ratings are