Copper theft presents a significant challenge for loss control.
Unlike other property crimes where "recovery" goes a long way toward mitigating the loss, such as the recovery of a stolen car in an auto theft, the recovery of the stolen copper seldom impacts the size of the claim.
Copper theft is different because the damage done to a building stealing a few hundred dollars' worth of copper can cost insurers tens of thousands of dollars to repair. The typical copper theft claim involves the damage done ripping wires and plumbing out of walls or the coils from a rooftop HVAC system. In vacant buildings, thieves target water lines and sprinkler systems as well as the electrical wiring. Once a vacant property has been hit, thousands of dollars must be spent to bring it back up to code before it can be occupied. It is this "collateral damage" that makes copper theft claims so expensive to an insurance company.
The key to reducing copper theft claims is prompt police response. The faster law enforcement arrives, the less time thieves have to damage the property. Faster police response is what wireless video alarms deliver and why they are a valuable tool for loss control against copper theft.
Copper theft has impacted insurance companies across North America, becoming a mainstream problem covered by television news. The following reports from television news underscore much of what this article is attempting to communicate — a new paradigm to mitigate risk and reduce claims impacting the real world from Virginia to Arizona.
Construction crime is a close cousin to copper theft and has been a black hole for risk management with few affordable solutions. The nature of construction risk is temporary and this means that wired surveillance cameras and alarm systems are simply too expensive and cumbersome to install to make them cost-effective.
The technology challenges are significant: in addition to limited budgets there is often no power, no phone lines, and no easy access to internet. Policy holders do not want to spend large amounts of money for temporary infrastructure that has no value after the job is done. For construction, human guarding is the most obvious approach, but it is beyond the budgets of many job sites. With guarding cost prohibitive, from a loss control perspective there have been very few affordable options for mainstream policy holders to protect their projects. Construction remains a problem child for many insurers who are forced to raise deductibles and implement exclusions to make construction profitable.
The following newscast from Buffalo, New York describes the challenges of securing a construction site and successes found with wireless video alarm systems.
While human guards have become too expensive and unreliable for many sites, technology is improving and loss control has a new tool to secure construction sites. Portable wireless video alarms give loss control professionals an affordable tool to deliver police response to a job site before the damage occurs. These new wireless camera/detectors (called MotionViewers) sense an intruder and send a short video clip of the incident over the cell network to a central monitoring station for immediate review and police dispatch and priority police response.
The immediate review/response with a monitored video alarm has proven more effective than human guards as the sensor/cameras are installed in multiple points across the job site to detect and report any activity. The crucial factor in reducing claims for copper theft is immediate police response, and video verified alarms make all the difference — the monitoring central station operator is a virtual eyewitness to the crime.
Police treat a video verified alarm as a crime-in-progress — they respond faster and they make arrests. Case studies on video verified alarms have arrest rates of over 50%. One construction site in Arizona had 40 arrests over four months on a single site. Arrests make a difference because one arrest prevents an additional 30 crimes — copper theft is typically done by habitual thieves who target construction sites or vacant property.
To be affordable and effective, the camera/sensors must be easy to install, without the cost of trenching cables and running wires. Power is a challenge as many construction sites have only temporary power provided by generators during working hours. Many vacant building have no power at all.
The wireless Videofied alarm systems need no infrastructure to secure a site. They operate for months or even years on batteries, communicating over the cell network to the central station. These portable MotionViewers are more effective than fixed cameras because they can be moved to protect the assets on a job site as the project evolves. Portability is important because construction theft is often an inside job by a subcontractor familiar with the delivery and location of expensive materials or assets — and they know the locations of fixed cameras and how to avoid them. In contrast, magnetic mounts on the wireless MotionViewers enable the job supervisor to move the cameras, placing them on steel studs and tool cribs at the end of the day to protect what is most at risk.
Wireless video verified alarms for outdoor applications mean that loss control professionals have an effective tool to fight copper theft that is affordable enough for implementation by their policy holders. For more information visit www.videofied.com.
