Tool theft protection tips

 

Questions: What precautions to you take to protect your tools?

Interviewee: Builder A

Location: Southland

Staff: 17

Most of my staff are given a tool allowance, so they own most of their tools and are responsible for making sure they’re not stolen. I highly recommend staff get their tools insured and I know the majority of them do.

In terms of the business, two years ago a site we were working on was broken into and we had $35,000 worth of tools stolen, so that was a huge catalyst for beefing up our site security. We’ve started to install wi-fi enabled cameras on our jobs, which do a good job of keeping our valuables more secure. We also have battery-powered mini-alarms, which we set up on most of our jobs. They make a huge noise, so if anyone is trying to break in, we’ll know about it!

As a company, we own gear such as dropsaws, vacuum cleaners, laser levels and dyno drills. All our tools are insured; for me, it’s a must – plus we get our tools tagged every three months, so we’ve got a register of them. When we need to leave them onsite, we have secure lockboxes.

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Interviewee: Builder B

Location: Waikato

Staff: 15

There are several things we do to keep tools safe. We use dark tints on our vehicle windows, so people can’t see what we’ve got in them; we make sure it’s easy to lock our vans with central locking and we make sure to lock vans during the day and park them off the street, so it makes it one step harder for people to access them. Finally, we have tool insurance as well.

As a rule, we tend not to leave tools onsite – but, if we do, we’ll never keep them there for more than a couple of days.

We decided to take out insurance for all our tools about six years ago because we own most of them and, as we expanded and took on more staff, our liability grew and we wanted to protect ourselves.

We also have a tool register, which means we can claim on insurance easier if we need to and it could help with recovery if we ever suffer from a burglary.

Our chippies own some of their own tools and we highly recommend they get them insured. Interestingly, the only time we’ve seen tools stolen is out of an individual’s private vehicle; we’ve never had any taken from a work van.

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Interviewee: Builder C

Location: Hawke’s Bay

Staff: 7

All our tools are insured, even if they’re in one of our vans or on a worksite, so that’s the main precaution we take against theft. Additionally, we’ll always make sure to lock our vans if they’re parked out of sight. We don’t often leave our tools on site overnight but, if we do, we’ll lock them inside the building we’re working on – or keep them inside a secured shipping container. As we own the majority of the tools we use, we work hard to ensure they’re as secure as possible.

We’ll also be setting up a tool register and making sure we keep that up to date. Cyclone Gabrielle made it clear to everyone that claiming insurance was a lot easier if businesses kept thorough documents!

Touch wood, we haven’t had any thefts yet, but it always helps to be prepared and make sure you limit your exposure if something bad does happen.