We often get asked from our customers “What locks do I need to meet my insurance company’s requirements”?

Generally your insurance company will stipulate that all final exit doors, by that I mean, Front Door, Back Door and Patio/French Doors, all doors that lead to the outside of the property basically, will need to be fitted with locks that meet or exceed BS3621. I have carried out a lot of insurance checks in my time as a locksmith, albeit a few years ago now and this is the information I have amassed from experience.

Whatever lock you need will be dictated by the door type, so lets cover off the basics here to make things a little clearer:

Wooden Doors: Most wooden doors will have either a Night Latch generally referred to as Yale fitted around shoulder height, or a Mortice Sash Lock with handles again generally referred to as a Chubb, fitted at waist height. Some doors will have a combination of both a  Night Latch and a Mortice Deadlock, whatever you have on the door only one needs to be of BS3621 specification, as long as you have a lock to that standard you should be covered.

UPVC doors are fitted with what we refer to as Multi-Point Locks, this is the full locking mechanism fitted to the side of the door and not the cylinder that is operated by the key, as this is a Euro Cylinder see my other Blog posts about these in my previous blog

Insurers usually want 3 or more locking points on these type of doors, the basic ones offer this with two or more rollers, deadlocks or hooks coupled with a deadlock that is operated when the handle is lifted and locked in place when the key is turned. Others have more locking points and are therefore more secure from the insurers point of view.

For our full range of insurance approved locks please visit our site www.discountlocks.co.uk