Insurance Premiums to Soar.
Surveyors and Engineers could be in for a shock come renewal time for their survey equipment insurance with the average insurance premium set to rise by over 300 percent. Due to a recent spate of survey equipment claims, insurers are now increasing premiums to recover the large increase in claim payouts seen over the last two years.
It would appear that a new trend has been identified by the insurance companies in the increasing number of thefts.
We have heard of two different items of survey equipment being stolen from one site in the East Midlands within a couple of months of each other. Both items of survey equipment were worth around £20,000 each. But it is not only the cost of the survey equipment, there is the lost production time that is usually huge cost too. And a quick search of the internet also identified £60,000 worth of survey equipment stolen and £15,000 leica TS16 stolen . Both were similar in the way that the survey equipment was stolen.
Cost to Insure.
The new likely cost to insure each item of survey equipment will depend on what level of insurance cover you require. If you require an all risk, new for old policy then your premium is likely to soar from around £300 per year to around £1,000 per year. These figures are based on insuring one piece of survey equipment of a new value of around £20,000.
Alternatively you could insure on a current value policy which would help reduce your insurance premiums. This would however mean that you would only be able to get second hand survey equipment, and that may well restrict the range and the quality of the survey equipment you could get.
Left with No Choice.
If your survey equipment is on finance, as so many are, you may have no choice but to insure your survey equipment and pay the increased insurance premiums. Can you imagine having to still pay the finance company, and having to hire a replacement survey instrument to finish a contract. A recent poll found that 40 percent of surveyors had been affected by theft or loss of survey equipment.
What should you do.
If you have been unfortunate enough to have your surveying equipment stolen then one of the first things to do is to report it to the police. Here in the UK you can also report it to the manufacturer. You should also complete complete a form on the TSA website as The Survey Association have teamed up with Smartwater to help combat Survey Equipment theft.
Remember that you should record the serial numbers of all your surveying equipment (and these can also be found on your calibration certificates). There are also numerous other ways to protect your survey equipment from the likes of datatag and Smartwater but there are also physical deterrents that you can buy from your survey supplier.
