I *think* that they're still safe, even in the event of a hard fork. If this were to happen, your coins would still be 'valid' on whichever chain survives the hard fork, as long as you upgraded to using whichever version of the protocol becomes widely accepted.  I might be wrong but in the event of a hard fork where both chains survive, I think you'd be able to spend the coins once on each branch of the fork?

If my understanding is correct (I'm still learning too...)