What Do You Know About BS3621?

No-one Knows – Or Cares!

Aviva have been running an excellent advert recently about buildings insurance where they mention locks needing to meet BS3621. We take a look at the standard.

Do you know whether your door locks meet BS 3621 standards? It’s a difficult question that can baffle and bemuse anyone without an in-depth knowledge of security product standards. However, knowing whether your locks are BS 3621 are compliant may be the difference between your building insurance covering you, or not. Karen Hubbard Product Manager for Mortice Locks at UNION, discusses. 

Have you seen Aviva’s latest home insurance advert? If you have, then you may feel for the main character. In a mock interrogation scene, a man is being questioned about the locks fitted to his doors and whether they meet BS 3621.

BS 3621 is a British Standard designed to show whether a lock is of a good, thief-resistant quality. However, even though the homeowner in Aviva’s advert has lived in his house for seven years, he’s unable to answer the insurer’s question. He simply does not know – would you? Presuming he’s lying, the interrogator presses further.

Finally, the man cracks: “I don’t know!” he cries. “Nobody knows!”

The advert is right – for the end user, questions like these can feel impossible to answer. Here at UNION, we understand that you have a million and one things to think about, and those probably do not include BS 3621.

Yet while it might look like technical jargon, BS 3621 is an important standard to understand for homeowners, with the implications potentially being fairly big. To meet this standard, a lock must exceed a certain level of performance and be subjected to a general vulnerability assessment. This assessment allows it to be Kitemarked by the British Standards Institution – a highly-recognisable quality mark showing it meets optimum standards for attack resistance, security, quality and reliability.

Crucially, BS 3621 is the benchmark for insurance companies to measure the robustness of door locks. If you are burgled and your locks have not been tested to this standard, you may not receive your expected cover upon making a claim. Any Kitemarked lock will bear the logo, so with a simple check, you can ensure you remain protected.

https://www.uniononline.co.uk/en/site/union-online/news/201711/news/what-do-you-know-about-bs3621/