What UK Police and Action Fraud Advise You to Keep at Home (And What You Shouldn't)

When it comes to home security, most of us rely on a combination of common sense, the security products we have been sold, and a vague awareness that burglary is something that happens to other people. What we rarely do is consult the people who spend their professional lives dealing with the aftermath of burglaries — the police officers, fraud investigators, and crime prevention specialists whose daily work involves sitting with victims and examining what went wrong.

This article does exactly that. It draws together the guidance published by the Metropolitan Police, Action Fraud, the Home Office, the Association of British Insurers (ABI), the National Crime Agency (NCA), and regional police forces across the UK on the specific question of what to keep at home and how to protect it. Some of this advice is counterintuitive. Some of it contradicts widely held assumptions. All of it is based on the experience of professionals who understand, better than most of us do, how residential crime actually works.

The overarching message from these organisations is consistent: most people keep more at home than is either necessary or safe, in less secure conditions than they realise. The practical recommendations are specific, actionable, and — in many cases — simpler than you might expect.

Cash at Home: The UK Police and ABI Position

Let us start with cash, because it is the most concrete and quantifiable area where official advice diverges sharply from common practice.

How Much Cash Is Safe to Keep at Home?

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) and most UK home contents insurers set a cash coverage limit of between £500 and £1,000. This is not an arbitrary number: it is the amount that insurers consider reasonable to keep at home, and it reflects an assessment of the typical cash holdings of UK households combined with the risk profile of that cash.

In practical terms, this means that any cash you keep at home above approximately £1,000 is effectively uninsured. If it is stolen in a burglary, your insurance claim will be capped at the policy limit, and you will absorb the remainder as a direct loss.

The Metropolitan Police's Crime Prevention advice is explicit on this point: keep as little cash at home as possible. The reasons are straightforward:

• Cash is untraceable and unrecoverable if stolen
• Cash is one of the primary items burglars search for, precisely because of its immediate value and untraceability
• Cash kept at home is almost always kept in one of the locations that burglars search first
• Even cash kept in a safe is vulnerable if the safe is removed or attacked

The practical guidance: use contactless and card payments wherever possible, keep ATM withdrawals small and frequent rather than withdrawing large amounts to store at home, and avoid accumulating cash reserves at home even for the purpose of convenience.

If You Must Keep Cash at Home

There are circumstances in which keeping some cash at home is genuinely necessary — for older relatives who rely on cash, for small businesses that operate with cash float, or simply for emergency preparedness. If you do keep cash at home:

• Keep the amount to the minimum necessary (and within your insurance limit)
• Do not keep it in the sock drawer, under the mattress, in kitchen tins, or in any of the other predictable locations that burglars search routinely
• Store it in a properly installed, insurance-approved safe if amounts exceed £500 — or in concealed storage that provides genuine security through invisibility
• Do not tell others how much cash you keep at home

Identity Documents: The Guidance from Action Fraud and the NCA

Identity documents are among the most consequential items that can be stolen in a burglary. Not because of their intrinsic financial value, but because of what they enable: identity fraud that can follow you for years, affecting your credit rating, your ability to open accounts, and in serious cases, resulting in criminal records in your name.

What Documents Are at Risk?

Action Fraud — the UK's national fraud and cybercrime reporting centre, operated by the City of London Police — identifies the following as the documents of greatest risk in a residential burglary:

• Passports — the most valuable identity document for criminals. A genuine UK passport can be used for identity fraud or sold on. The financial value of a stolen passport on criminal markets significantly exceeds its replacement cost.
• Driving licences — particularly photo card driving licences, which serve as primary identity documents in many contexts.
• Birth certificates — used to obtain other identity documents. A birth certificate alone is insufficient for most modern identity fraud, but combined with other documents or used with the National Insurance number (below), it is a significant risk.
• National Insurance number documentation — the NI number, combined with other identity documents, enables a wide range of fraudulent activities including tax fraud, benefits fraud, and financial account applications.
• Bank statements and financial documents — these provide account details that enable fraud even when the physical cards are not stolen. Account numbers, sort codes, and the personal details visible on statements are sufficient for some types of banking fraud.
• Utility bills — used as proof of address in identity verification. Recent utility bills combined with other documents enable identity fraud at a wide range of organisations.

How Action Fraud Recommends Protecting Documents

Action Fraud's guidance on document security at home is clear and specific:

Do not leave important documents out on desks or worktops. Documents visible in plain sight — even if a home appears secure — can be accessed by anyone with access to the property, including tradespeople, visitors, or those who enter during a burglary.

Store documents in a secure location. A lockable filing cabinet, a fire-resistant document safe (which provides the additional benefit of protecting documents from fire as well as theft), or a concealed storage solution that provides genuine security.

Shred rather than bin. Documents you no longer need — old bank statements, utility bills, expired identity documents — should be shredded rather than placed in recycling. Bins are a documented source of personal information for identity fraudsters.

Consider digital copies. Scanned copies of important documents stored securely in encrypted cloud storage provide an accessible backup if originals are lost or stolen, and can be used in insurance claims and police reports.

Report loss or theft immediately. If identity documents are stolen in a burglary, report this to Action Fraud, to the relevant issuing authority (Passport Office, DVLA), and to your bank. Early reporting significantly reduces the risk of successful fraud using stolen documents.

Jewellery and Watches: Police Guidance on Storage and Visibility

Jewellery is the most commonly stolen category of item in residential burglaries in the UK. ONS crime data consistently places jewellery at or near the top of the list of items reported stolen in burglary cases. The combination of high value, compact size, and ready resale market makes it the ideal target for residential burglars — and UK police forces have specific, detailed guidance on how to protect it.

The Visibility Rule

The Metropolitan Police's crime prevention guidance is unambiguous on the question of visibility: jewellery should not be visible from outside the property. This seems obvious, but the specific behaviours that violate this principle are often not thought of as risky:

• Jewellery boxes or display cases visible through bedroom or dressing room windows
• Jewellery left on bathroom windowsills (visible from outside)
• Photographs shared on social media showing jewellery collections or individual high-value pieces in the home
• Open plan living spaces where the kitchen and living area are visible through large windows, with jewellery left on surfaces

The logic is simple: visible jewellery communicates both the presence of jewellery and, often, something about its quality and value. A display of antique silver visible through a bedroom window is an advertisement.

Where to Store Jewellery According to Police Guidance

Police guidance typically recommends:

• Not using a jewellery box kept in an obvious location within the bedroom (the first location any burglar searches)
• High-value individual pieces should be stored in a properly rated safe or deposited in a bank safety deposit box
• For items used regularly, concealed storage that is genuinely non-obvious is recommended over any visible storage solution
• Items not regularly worn should be considered for bank vault or safety deposit box storage

The Secured by Design initiative (the police's own security standards programme) specifically recommends against visible jewellery storage in the master bedroom and advocates for concealed or secure storage for high-value items.

The Register and Photograph Requirement

All UK police forces recommend that jewellery should be photographed and its description recorded before any incident occurs. This serves two purposes: it enables insurance claims to be made with supporting evidence, and it provides police with the description information needed to identify and return recovered stolen property.

Platforms like Immobilise (the UK's national property register, used by all UK police forces) allow jewellery and other valuables to be registered with descriptions and, where applicable, hallmark or identifying feature information. Registration is free and significantly improves the chances of recovery if items are stolen.

High-Value Items: Insurance and Police Guidance

Both the ABI and UK police forces emphasise that high-value jewellery — items worth more than the single article limit on a standard contents policy, typically £1,500–£2,000 — should be specifically listed on an insurance policy and professionally valued. Without a professional valuation and specific listing, the insurance settlement for a high-value item may be significantly lower than its replacement cost.

Items of particularly high value or particular irreplaceability — family heirlooms, pieces with significant historical or sentimental value — should be considered for specialist insurance that covers the full replacement value, including the premium associated with any unusual or antique elements.

Electronics and Portable Devices: Action Fraud and Metropolitan Police Advice

Electronics represent a significant and growing component of residential burglary losses. Laptops, tablets, smartphones, gaming consoles, and portable speakers are all high-value, easily carried, and readily resaleable — the ideal characteristics, from a burglar's perspective, for items to target.

Registration and Identification

Action Fraud and the Metropolitan Police both emphasise the importance of recording serial numbers for all electronic devices. The serial number is the primary means by which stolen electronics can be identified if recovered, and its absence from a burglary report significantly reduces the probability of recovery.

The recommended approach:

• Record the serial number of every electronic device (typically found on the underside of the device, in the settings menu, or on original packaging)
• Photograph the device, including the serial number visible in the photograph
• Register the device on Immobilise
• Consider property marking — UV-marking devices with your postcode and house number — as an additional deterrent and identification measure

Smart Devices and Keyless Entry

Smart home devices and keyless car entry systems introduce a specific security consideration that the Metropolitan Police's cyber crime unit has highlighted: the risk that devices connected to home networks can provide information about household patterns and routines, and that keyless entry fobs can be cloned or subject to relay attack.

Car key fob security has become a specific issue as keyless entry and start systems have proliferated. Keys left near the front door (in a hallway table, on a hook, or in a kitchen bowl) are vulnerable to relay attacks, where a device held outside the property intercepts and amplifies the key fob's signal to allow the car to be unlocked and started without the key. The Metropolitan Police specifically recommends storing key fobs in a Faraday pouch or a metal tin when not in use, and keeping them away from external walls and doors.

What Not to Keep at Home: The Direct Police Guidance

Beyond the guidance on how to protect what you keep at home, UK police forces and Action Fraud have specific guidance on what should not be kept at home at all — or at least should be kept at home with far more caution than is typical.

Large Amounts of Cash

As discussed above, the guidance is clear: minimise cash kept at home. The specific recommendation from most police forces is to keep less than £1,000 in cash at home, and ideally significantly less. Cash above the insurance limit is directly lost if stolen; cash in any amount is a primary target that burglars expect to find in predictable locations.

Multiple Identity Documents Together

Keeping your passport, driving licence, birth certificate, and financial documents all in the same location — which many people do, for convenience — creates a concentrated target. If that location is discovered in a burglary, the victim has lost not just one identity document but all of them simultaneously. Action Fraud recommends distributing important documents across different, secure locations rather than consolidating them in a single "important documents" folder or box.

Spare Keys

Spare keys left in obvious locations — under the doormat, in a flowerpot, on a hook by the door, or given to people who cannot be fully trusted — are a documented security risk. The Metropolitan Police advises against hiding spare keys outside the property in any location, and recommends that spare keys be held by a trusted individual (a relative, a close and trusted neighbour) rather than hidden at or near the property.

The risk is not just direct theft of the key, but the information that a spare key's location can provide to anyone who observes its use or has access to the property in any capacity (tradespeople, cleaners, holiday let visitors, previous tenants).

Expensive Items Left in Plain Sight

Police crime prevention guidance consistently emphasises the risk of leaving expensive items visible through windows or in areas accessible to visitors. This applies specifically to:

• Laptops and tablets left on kitchen tables or living room surfaces (visible through ground-floor windows)
• Handbags left near front doors or visible through hall windows
• High-value decorative items visible through bay windows
• Car keys left in obvious locations within view of the letterbox or glass panels near the front door

The logic is straightforward: visible valuables communicate the presence of valuable items to anyone who passes the property. This information may be acted upon immediately (opportunistic burglary) or stored for future use (planned burglary).

The Digital Security Dimension: What Action Fraud Says About Online Exposure

UK police forces and Action Fraud increasingly emphasise the connection between online behaviour and physical burglary risk. Social media, in particular, has become a significant source of intelligence for burglars targeting specific properties.

Holiday Announcements

Action Fraud's guidance is explicit: do not post holiday announcements or check-ins to social media while you are away from home. A public post from an airport lounge announcing a two-week holiday is equivalent to putting a sign on your door saying the property will be unoccupied for two weeks. Even apparently private posts — those shared only with friends — can be accessible to a wider audience than the poster assumes, through shared content, tagged friends, or compromised privacy settings.

The recommendation is to share holiday content after returning, rather than in real time.

Purchase Announcements

Sharing photographs or posts about expensive new purchases — a new television, a piece of jewellery, a new car — communicates to anyone who sees the content that these items are present in the home. This is particularly risky when combined with geotagged photographs or identifiable location information.

The National Crime Agency has documented cases in which social media content was used directly to identify and target specific properties for burglary. The pattern is consistent: a post about a new purchase, visible to a wide audience, provides both the motivation and the intelligence for a targeted burglary.

The Smart Home Data Risk

Smart home devices — including smart doorbells, cameras, and home automation systems — generate data about household patterns that is stored in cloud services. Action Fraud and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) both recommend:

• Using strong, unique passwords for all smart home accounts
• Enabling two-factor authentication wherever available
• Keeping device firmware updated
• Being aware that smart device data, if accessed without authorisation, can reveal household routines and patterns of occupancy

What the Police Say About Home Security Equipment

Beyond the guidance on what to keep and what to protect, UK police forces have specific guidance on the security equipment that is most effective.

Secured by Design

The police's own security standards initiative, Secured by Design (SBD), provides a list of approved security products that meet or exceed police recommendations. Products with the SBD mark have been independently tested and certified to the standards the police consider appropriate for residential security.

The SBD programme covers locks, doors, windows, alarm systems, CCTV, lighting, and a range of other security products. For anyone looking to invest in home security, checking the SBD approved products list provides a reliable starting point.

What the Metropolitan Police Specifically Recommends

The Metropolitan Police's dedicated crime prevention advice — widely available on the Metropolitan Police website and through local borough crime prevention officers — consistently recommends:

• Locks: BS 3621 five-lever mortice deadlocks on all external doors, or BS PAS 24 compliant doors with multi-point locking systems. Cylinder locks should be anti-snap, anti-drill, and anti-pick rated.
• Windows: Key-operated locks on all accessible windows. Window restrictors on first-floor windows. Security film on ground-floor glazing.
• Alarms: Grade 2 or higher alarm systems meeting BS EN 50131, monitored by an NSI or SSAIB-accredited company.
• CCTV: Systems meeting the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) guidance, with good quality resolution and adequate storage capacity.
• Lighting: PIR-activated exterior lighting covering all approaches.

Where Standard Police Advice Has a Gap

The guidance from UK police forces and Action Fraud is comprehensive and evidence-based. But it has a gap — one that is acknowledged implicitly in the advice but rarely addressed directly. The guidance tells you what to protect and broadly how to protect the perimeter of your home. It does not, in most cases, tell you specifically how to store your most valuable possessions inside the home in a way that provides genuine security against the four-minute interior search.

Police guidance on interior storage tends to default to three options: bank deposit boxes (for items not regularly needed), properly rated safes (for items needed more frequently), and insurance (as a financial fallback). What is largely absent from mainstream police guidance is a recognition that these solutions have significant limitations — and that a fourth option, genuinely concealed storage within everyday furniture, addresses those limitations directly.

This gap exists not because the police are unaware of the limitations of conventional safes, but because the category of furniture with concealed, NFC/RFID-secured compartments is relatively new, and official guidance tends to lag behind what is available in the market.

Taking Police and Action Fraud Guidance Further

Following the guidance from UK police forces and Action Fraud will make your home significantly more secure than most. But the most comprehensive protection comes from addressing the complete chain of security — from the initial targeting assessment, through perimeter security, to the question of what the burglar finds (and does not find) inside if they achieve entry despite all the deterrents.

That final link in the chain — ensuring that your most valuable possessions are genuinely not findable in a rapid interior search — is what Beetle Wood furniture addresses. Our pieces integrate concealed, NFC/RFID-secured storage into everyday furniture that looks and functions entirely normally. No visible safe. No jewellery box. No predictable hiding place. Just furniture — and within it, invisible storage that falls entirely outside the search pattern that even the most experienced burglar follows.

The police advice tells you what to protect. Beetle Wood shows you how to protect it — beyond the safe, beyond the sock drawer, and beyond the reach of the four-minute search. Explore the collection at beetlewood.store.