The actual material damages suffered in a burglary are easy enough to overcome. Items that can’t be replaced can be tucked into a wall safe with your personal documents, and everything else is probably covered on your homeowners insurance policy.
Best-case scenario, you take some preventative measures, and nobody bothers burglarizing you in the first place. That’s what we like to hope for, but we need to have a plan B in place, as well, so that we’re able to control the damages should a break-in take place. Here’s what to know, and what to consider.
- Consider Replacement Cost coverage over Actual Cash Value. Replacement Cost will pay for the same, or a similar item, following a break-in.
- Keep your Home Inventory up to date. When you get something valuable like a new television, take photos, copy receipts, and keep your insurance provider up to date on the value of your home’s contents.
- Your insurance will probably cover damages suffered during the break-in, broken windows, fences, doors, and so on.
- All insurance claims will have a deductible, taken from the total claim around, typically between one and five thousand dollars.
- Burglars aren’t just after jewelry and appliances. Among the most commonly burgled items are medication, liquor, and sensitive data such as credit card numbers.
- Surveillance cameras will be your best bet at actually catching the crooks. Most burglaries go unsolved, but catching them on camera is a step in the right direction.
- “Burglary” conjures up the image of a crowbar smashing a window open, but a major portion of burglaries involve unlocked windows and doors. Criminals are, by large, mere opportunists. They’re probably not targeting your home specifically, they simply saw an opening and they seized on it.
- Most burglaries take place during the daytime, not at night. At night, the whole family is usually home, but in the daytime, people are out at work or school, making it easy to sneak in and out without being witnessed by the homeowners or by neighbors.
- Around one in ten burglaries actually take place while someone is at home; however, so don’t assume that being home makes you completely safe from a burglar.
- Burglars are less likely to rob homes with security systems. We’ll say it again: Criminals are opportunists. We see movies and TV shows where teams of expert house burglars know how to sneak in without tripping the burglar alarm, but in reality that’s a lot of work to go through when the next-door neighbor doesn’t even have an alarm in the first place.
- If you are robbed, don’t feel ashamed about any feelings you have regarding the matter. It’s natural to feel a loss of trust in your fellow human being; it’s natural to feel betrayed and violated even if all they took was twenty dollars of liquor. If you need to, talk to a therapist or seek out a support group.
Best-case scenario: Burglars see your surveillance camera, the security system sticker on your window, they find that your doors and windows are locked, and they move on. Chances are if you are robbed despite having these basic security measures in place, it was someone you know. Typical crooks are just looking for an easy payday, and they’re not going to jump through any more hoops than they have to in order to get it.
But even should worse come to worst, insurance is there to cover the damages.
