Requests for warranty service, lost combinations, and emergency openings are a common occurrence at NW Safe. We receive them weekly. It is also common practice to help families or friends to gain access to safes for folks who are sick, have passed away, or are even out of the country working. But being able to help requires the gun safe owner to take a few preliminary steps.
Why It’s Important to Register Your Warranty and Add Family/Friends to Your Invoice
Registering your warranty and adding family and friends to your invoice takes minimal time upfront and can save you lots of time in the long run.
These simple steps offer a variety of benefits, including:
- Registering your warranty makes it easier to get your safe serviced.
- Adding friends and family to your invoice helps loved ones gain access to your safe in a timely manner during an emergency.
- Registering your gun safe warranty can help with the replacement of your safe if it's ever lost in a fire or damaged from an attempted break-in.
- Registering your warranty can help you recover your combination or reset it, in the event it is lost or forgotten.
4 Steps to Protecting Your Gun Safe
1. Register Your Warranty
Register the warranty of your safe if your manufacturer offers this service. Liberty Safe even offers what they call a “Combo Vault” service on their website. It keeps the combination to your safe in an encrypted database, but gives you access via a password if you ever need to retrieve it. Make sure you add your spouse or any other people you trust to have access to the safe when you register the warranty.
2. Add a Trusted Individual to Your Invoice
Have your spouse or a trusted individual added to the invoice or account where you purchased your safe. You can do this when you purchase your safe or after the fact. If you do so after the fact, make sure to request a new copy of your invoice.
3. Keep Your Sales Receipt
Always keep the receipt for your gun safe purchase, as this will prove ownership.
4. Have a Will Made and DO NOT Keep it in Your Safe
For a variety of reasons, having a will is a good idea. In the case of a safe, it allows you to grant individuals access to the contents of your safe even after you are deceased. But, make sure not to store your will inside your safe. Rather, give your will to your attorney. And, let friends and family know who your attorney is.
It’s important to note that Power of Attorney is only valid while the safe owner is alive. But, it does give you the right to obtain a safe combination or master reset code while the Power of Attorney is active.
A death certificate alone will not give you access to a safe once the safe owner has passed away. If you are not listed on the safe registration or sales receipt, you will have to obtain a document recognized by the state that gives you access to the safe owner’s estate or belongings.
These documents are a trust, a will with a letter of testament enacted by the court after their death, or a successor affidavit. The successor affidavit is what you need if there is no will. It is drafted by an attorney, and then submitted to the courts for approval the same way the will is after a safe owner passes.
I’m Locked Out of My Safe, Help!
NW Safe’s professional gun safe technicians can get into any safe, often without any visible evidence that you were locked out. Additionally, we can help customers retrieve forgotten combinations and reset combinations, as needed.