Insurance Graded Padlocks According to CEN
Your insurance company may require that you need a specific type of padlock or one with a minimum security rating. This will vary from one insurance underwriter to another but they mostly follow the same basic set of requirements.
Although insurance companies have different standards they mostly follow a basic rule that you use a ‘closed-shackle’ design which must be a keyed padlock rather than a combination type.
For more specialist insurance they will use the industry standard for padlock testing. This is the European CEN grade. There are 6 levels within the grade ranging from general use to maximum security. CEN Level 6 padlocks are rare and have a price point of £100 or more usually.
- GRADE 6 – Maximum Security
- GRADE 5 - Extra High Security
- GRADE 4 - High Security
- GRADE 3 - Medium Security
- GRADE 2 – Standard Security
- GRADE 1 – Low Security
When padlocks are graded, they undergo a number of rigorous tests which simulate an attack. Human manipulation and environmental durability are not included within the tests:
The grading system is slightly flawed in that a lock only needs to fail one of the minimum criteria to a single category to be reduced to its lowest scoring grade. This means that some padlocks may perform like a CEN 6 padlock in all tests but fail at minus 40 degree centigrade. It would therefore be lowered accordingly.
It is however a much better system than simply stating that your padlock much be of a closed shackle design which many insurance companies rely on. We stock many open-shackle padlocks that are two grades higher in the CEN system than some of our closed-shackle locks. If you are faced with this problem and that a closed-shackle padlock is simply not convenient, ask your insurance company for a relative CEN or BS EM grade.