People with precious family heirlooms and documents that smoldered in safe- deposit boxes within one of the still-standing World Trade Center buildings have learned a hard lesson.

Although the contents of a safe-deposit box are secured inside a bank’s facilities, the items in the box are personal belongings and are not insured by the bank. Consumers need to insure those items on their own.

“It’s probably the largest misunderstanding there is out there,” said David McGuinn, founder of Safe Deposit Specialists and national consultant to banks for safe-deposit operations. “The misunderstanding probably comes about because consumers feel that every type of service provided to them by a financial institution has at least $100,000 of government insurance,” he said, referring to coverage by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The FDIC insures only deposits in deposit accounts at insured institutions. Safe-deposit boxes are considered storage space provided by the bank and do not fall under the insurance laws, according to the government agency. Banks offer safe- deposit boxes as a service to customers, but take no responsibility for what is inside.

“We really don’t want to know what’s in there. It’s your personal property,” said Jill Sandilla, Fifth Third Bank vice president and regional manager for Summit and Portage counties, Ohio. “We do not want to take any liability with those boxes.”

That’s why an employee will turn around or leave the room after a customer accesses a box, McGuinn said. There really are no laws specifying what can and cannot be held in a safe-deposit box.

“If you’re breaking the law and using the box to break the law, a bank could have some exposure if they knew what was in there. If there’s no knowledge, there’s no reason to be responsible,” he said.

A more likely scenario and reason for protection for banks, though, is responsibility for lost or stolen items in a box, McGuinn said: “If I know there are 3,000 $100 bills in there and they disappear, I’m the first suspect.”

Most banks have safe-deposit boxes that will not open without two keys  the bank’s key and the individual’s key. “If a customer’s key is missing, we literally have to drill the box,” Sandilla said.

Banks’ offerings differ

Even though his bank is not liable for the contents of safe-deposit boxes, North Akron Savings Bank President Steve Hailer says he is moving away from that service. “I really don’t want that responsibility,” said Hailer, who added the bank will continue to service its existing safe-deposit box customers, but is not renting boxes to new customers.

Hailer said his clients are not knocking down the door for that service.

“It’s really a day gone by, for me,” Hailer said.

But many banks in Lawrence continue to provide safe-deposit boxes  including the two soon-to-open locations for Central National Bank.

“They’re full-service banks,” said Brad Chindamo, the bank’s president in Lawrence.

McGuinn said a popular trend recently is to offer large boxes with doors and combination locks for larger items. A growing and disturbing trend among banks now is to go to something called self-service or self-entry safe-deposit boxes, he said. No employee lets the customer into the vault and boxes can be opened with one key instead of two, said McGuinn.

Some banks have even taken the boxes out of bank vaults and placed them in the lobby. McGuinn warns against using these types of self-serve safe-deposit boxes, which he calls the “bus locker concept.”

“Don’t call it safe. Give it another name. It’s not safe,” he said.

Damage is possible

Another misconception among consumers, said McGuinn, is that vaults and safe-deposit boxes are completely safe. Many are fire-resistant and water-resistant, but are not fireproof or waterproof, he said. While it’s a highly unusual set of circumstances, the virtual destruction of items in safe-deposit boxes in a bank branch in 5 World Trade Center shows how items can be damaged, he said.

Though no flames actually engulfed the building  which was badly burned and damaged after the Sept. 11 attacks and remains standing  the intense heat from surrounding fires essentially made searing ovens of the boxes.

One of the largest losses in that New York fire were 40,000 photo negatives of John F. Kennedy belonging to the former president’s late personal photographer. The negatives, which were not insured, are estimated to be worth $2 million to $3 million.

Check with agencies

Jeanne Salvatore, vice president for consumer affairs at the Insurance Information Institute, suggests consumers check with their insurance agent to find out what protection they have under existing policies of items placed in safe-deposit boxes. Many homeowner insurance policies will put a monetary limit on how much is covered outside of the home or on jewelry. If a person has valuable items, it is worth looking into buying what’s called a floater or endorsement  additional insurance on specific items, she said. Items kept in safe- deposit boxes are generally less expensive to insure because they’re in a relatively safe place, she said.

McGuinn discounts safes that many consumers buy at a retail store and use in their home. Ironically, the safe-deposit expert decided he was sick of paying for a box at a local bank four years ago. So he went out and bought a 300-pound safe and put it in his home. Last January, his house was burglarized and the safe was opened with “crowbars and every type of tool” and McGuinn and his wife lost $50,000 in items.

McGuinn jokes that he no longer has anything valuable to put in a safe-deposit box, but he now rents one again. That’s because a robbery is going to be less likely, he said. “First they have to penetrate a door that is two tons. Or a wall with heat sensors, motion detectors on the inside that have been activated. It would probably be 200 times more difficult to take things out of there than out of my house,” McGuinn said.

So what should you put into a safe- deposit box? Anything that is considered valuable or not easy to replace, said McGuinn, who suggests putting items in plastic sandwich bags or plastic containers to lessen potential water damage.