To me, what form of silver to invest in is as important a decision as whether to invest in silver at all. If you choose to invest in the real deal, fully paid for and held in hand, you won't have to worry about the many things that can go wrong with paper silver. You can look beyond short-term fluctuations and focus on the long term and never have to worry about a default. No form of paper silver is insured by any government agency. Buying silver in most paper forms is like putting your money in a bank with no FDIC insurance.
Real silver is real.
It doesn't need insurance to guarantee its value. Its value is determined by its necessity in modern life. What makes silver valuable is that we need it and that the world doesn't produce enough to prevent a persistent and shocking shrinkage of above-ground inventories. We're running out of real silver. If you see with your own eyes a possible shortage developing in something, human logic dictates accumulating a stockpile of that item, if possible.