Burglary Lessons Learned

Please share this: Recently some friends of mine had their home burglarized and lost approximately 4000$ worth of stuff. While there is nothing I or we (internet readers) can do about this event, there is definitely some lessons that can be learned and applied across the globe. What follows is correspondence from the woman's mother advising all of us of steps that should be taken to ensure rebound from such an event is as easy as possible.

Names and places have been changed to protect the family involved.

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I want to share with all of you the trials Jane has gone through in the last week and a half because some thieves broke in her house and stole about $4000 in various items.  She feels lucky that they did not vandalize anything, and they were very selective in what they stole – nothing that is irreplaceable or of great sentimental value.  It has been a real eye opener for all of us though, and we’d like to share what we have learned, so some good can come of this.  Thinking about this has brought to mind other lessons we have learned from theft and losses we have gone through, so those lessons are added here too.

Lesson one:

Make sure you have renters or home owners insurance and that it is up to date – Your address needs to be correct, or they limit what they pay (Jane & John moved from Town A and did not update the address to the Town B address – fortunately the limit for what the insurance company will pay is higher than what was stolen, but there was a day of angst waiting for the decision about whether they would cover anything).  If you have particularly valuable items, they should be on a separate rider with appraisals, or receipts with original purchase prices (did not apply to Jane & John this time, but we learned this when Jill’s computer was stolen at college – we did have it on a rider and received a check for the replacement value within 2 days of her computer being stolen).  Get insurance for replacement value – otherwise they depreciate everything and your insurance will never cover replacing it.

If you are cohabitating with someone you are not married to, and co-mingling possessions, get a combined insurance policy – otherwise you are dealing with two deductibles, and the issues of deciding who owns what for insurance coverage.  It is much easier to combine them all for insurance purposes, under one policy, and State Farm suggested Jane & John do this in the future.

Lesson two:

Document everything you own!!!  Either save all your receipts and document everything you buy, including serial numbers, model numbers or take photos of absolutely everything including shots of the serial number plate, with the dates showing for when purchased.  Jane & John are having to document they really owned what they are claiming was stolen….not an easy thing to do unless you keep very detailed records.  Fortunately they still had the box for their 42” TV, so they had the serial number and model number, and they have an Xbox account and a Satellite radio account, so they can use that as evidence they owned those items.

Doesn’t help with the laptop, Ipod, binoculars, CDs, Xbox games, dvd player or John’s bike.  If they had photos of everything it would help a lot, but still not be perfect.  Receipts would be best.  Do not keep these photos on your camera or computer, in case they get stolen – keep them somewhere besides the insured location, in case of tornado, hurricane or fire.  Additional back-up – I know from having my wallet stolen in Country A that keeping photocopies of all your credit cards, ATM cards etc – (everything in your wallet) front and back of everything is a life saver if you wallet is lost or stolen.  Again – keep it someplace besides your home, in case of theft – safety deposit box, sibling’s home, place of work.  I was very lucky when my wallet was stolen in Country A – I had just copied everything and left it with my administrative assistant before we went to Country A in 1995.

I was able to tell her where I had the copies in my office desk drawer and she was able to call and cancel all my credit cards, and when I got home I was able to replace everything.  It helped to be able to take a copy of my license in when I went for a replacement driver’s license.  I redo this every couple of years.

Lesson 3:

If you give a workman a key, or let them know where you hide your key, change your locks after the work is done.  It is not that expensive.  Whoever broke into Jane & John’s had a key.  We had not changed the lock since we bought the house because we were having a lot of people work on the house, and we gave all the contractors keys.  We had not changed the locks, so it appears someone copied the key, or someone the prior owners gave a key to, broke in the house.  Locksmiths can re-key a lock with a different key if your lock will be hard to replace.  We ended up doing this since the lock set for the Anderson Sliding door – which is the main entrance to the house – is discontinued.  If you have tall ladders that can be used to enter a second story window, make sure they are locked up.  Thieves looking for an easy way in will go for an open window and then unlock doors from the inside.

  

This has been very time consuming, working with the police and the insurance companies, so prevention is the best advice, but good documentation of some sort helps make the process easier and less time consuming.