Even when covered by insurance, losing your tools or your van can cause massive disruption to your business and means of making money. That’s why Vansdirect has shared five easy tips to safeguard your van at night, helping to protect your livelihood.
Some £3.5 billion worth of stolen equipment was reported last year and almost half (48%) of van drivers confess to keeping more than £2,150 worth of tools in their vans overnight. This means that UK tradespeople are risking up to £5 billion in lost equipment.
There were 34,712 tools stolen in London alone from January 2021 to October 2022. That’s a 62% increase on the 21,445 tools stolen from January 2019 to December 2020. Tradespeople are 10 times more likely to experience tool theft from a vehicle than they are from a building site or their place of work – with only 14% of cases leading to the suspect being identified.
Vanarama analysed the number of van insurance policies they sold and compared them against how many of those tradesman also took out tools insurance. The tool theft insurance data is made only more shocking when looking at tool theft figures from the last year which are up by a quarter.
The average value of equipment stored per van stands at £2,500, which means UK tradespeople are footing a £4.4 billion bill for replacement tools every year. In addition, the study found that when tools are stolen, it stops work for six days on average, causing UK businesses to lose a staggering £5.2 billion annually.
Van drivers are being targeted by thieves on the hunt for expensive tools, with research revealing over a quarter (27%) have had equipment stolen from vans in the past 12 months. A study by Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles found over half of van drivers (57%) who own tools are at risk, as they regularly leave gear in vans overnight.
On average, a tradesperson’s van is broken into every 23 minutes in the UK, and the impact of this on workers’ livelihoods can be devastating. Van theft not only sets workers back financially due to needing to replace the stolen goods, but it also costs them work and income in the meantime.
RESEARCH released by Verizon Connect reveals that stolen vehicles and equipment costs fleet-based business an average of £16,253 each year. The average business has at least one vehicle stolen each year and the average loss increases to nearly £50,000 for those businesses that have between 101-250 vehicles, as the number of vehicles stolen rises to three for businesses of this [...]
A total of 32,056 vans have been stolen over the last four years with almost 10,000 thefts recorded across the UK in the last year alone, according to official police statistics. The 2018/19 figures represent a year-on-year rise of 4% and a 45% increase since 2015/16.
From deadlocks and CCTV to deliberately parking badly and dirty vehicles, here are ways to deter thefts and catch those responsible when a crime is committed.
