Over the last decade the rate of car theft and car crime in the UK has fallen dramatically. Since the introduction of ignition and door locks in the 1920s, car security has been improved and refined to a point where most cars are nearly impossible to steal without the unique key.

Up until recently, manufacturers provided skeleton keys to fit all their plant, meaning one key could get into any machine made by that manufacturer. These key can be bought online for only a few pounds and are being used to steal plant and machinery worth tens of thousands of pounds. Plant theft is estimated to cost UK business £400m to £1bn every year.

Some plant manufacturers are now fitting unique keys to their plant. This change has been driven by the efforts of the police and insurers. David Swigciski, Regional Director of RSA's Construction Power & Engineering team explains: “RSA has taken an active role in recent years supporting the Home Office-established Plant Theft Action Group. This has involved liaising with the police, the Thatcham Motor Vehicle Repair and Research Centre, plant manufacturers and members of the British Machinery Insurers Association (BMIA). As a result, in 2009 Thatcham launched the five-star rating system for plant security.”

The rating system identifies five key security measures, each of which earns one star to a maximum of five:

• Operation with a unique key.
• Lockable doors and windows, operated by the same unique key that starts the vehicle.
• A Thatcham-approved immobilisation device.
• A Thatcham-approved tracking system.
• Registeration with CESAR – the Construction Equipment Security and Registration scheme.

RSA has a strong commitment to reducing plant theft and, together with other BMIA members, have funded a specialist police unit dealing with plant theft. The Plant and Agricultural National Intelligence Unit (PANIU) is part of the Metropolitan Police but has a nationwide brief to train other forces in plant theft prevention and detection. Early results have been encouraging: the recovery rate of stolen plant has historically been around 5% but the recovery rate for plant registered with CESAR is currently over 30%.

“In an ideal world, all plant should be fitted to a five star standard now,” says David Swigciski. “The reality is that most plant doesn’t meet that standard at present so we must reward the clients who are prepared to invest in plant security with premium incentives.”

Getting stolen plant recovered from the thieves and quickly returned to our customers reduces the downtime of operations requiring that machinery and ensures that work can resume as quickly as possible, reducing the impact of the theft on our insured and keeping them moving throughout.

The recovered plant also leads to improvements in our insured’s claims experiences that can make a huge difference to premiums at renewal time, especially when combined with the discounts that we award for vehicles complying with Thatcham’s five-star rating.

Article Courtesy of RSA. Published 03/03/2010