Usually not much more than 10 inches high and 15 inches wide, these storage devices often require dual key access during bank hours, with a key in possession by both you and your bank. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), some approved items to store in a safe deposit box are birth certificates, U.S. Savings Bonds not part of an electronic securities portfolio, and moving or still images of your insured material items. The benefit of keeping these items in a bank versus your home is the additional layers of protection — security guards, state-of-the-art surveillance systems, and several inches of bank vault between the public and your stuff — making them more secure. 

Electronic and cloud storage is having an impact on how many banks are continuing to offer them as an option. Although the American Banking Association lists safe deposit boxes with dual authentication for access as a relic of the past, with new bank branches being constructed without them, the boxes themselves will remain a feature in the banks that continue to offer them — just with more responsibility offloaded to the customer through single key and bio-authentication access. While safe deposit boxes can provide you with a measure of protection, they may not be the best place to store everything. Here are 11 things that should never go into your safe deposit box.