Norwich Union believes burglary rates could rise by 50%
Published: 23 April 2009 By MoneyhighStreet Staff 1 Comment
Alarmingly, Norwich Union believes burglary rates could rise by 50% this year on the back of the recession and rising unemployment.
Director of home pricing at Norwich Union, Simon Warsop, said ‘If this recession follows the pattern of previous recessions we would expect to see burglary rise by around a half by the end of the year.’
Norwich Union have been working with the Home Office to highlight the importance of home security to help in the prevention of burglary.
As well as protecting your home, there is of course the need to ensure your home insurance is fully up to date in case you are the unfortunate victim of a burglary and need to make a claim.
Top things stolen are all very portable items -
- Multimedia, including games, consoles and DVDs
- Cameras
- Computers
- Mobile Phones
- MP3 Players / iPods
- Jewellery, including rings which represent 33% of all jewellery stolen, followed by watches, earrings and necklaces.
The burglar usually tries to get in through the front or back door first. If this fails then the rear ground floor windows, patio and French doors and garage doors are all very common targets.
Sadly, once burgled there is a higher probability you will be burgled again. The reason being, the burglar knows you’re likely to have replaced a lot of your valuable items but are unlikely to have increased your home security. A prime target!
So some tips to help protect your home from that burglar
- Lock your doors and windows properly when you’re not home – apparently many people don’t even take this basic security step
- ensure valuable items are not on obvious display to tempt
- try not to give away clues that you are away – cancel deliveries, set up timers to switch lights and radios on and off automatically
- put away anything that can be used to help get into your property – tools and ladders for example
If the worst does happen and you are burgled then standard home insurance policies do cover you for burglary. You must make sure thought that you have the right level of cover for your home contents and possessions.
I find it hard to believe the number of burglaries will rise by as much as 50% – like all matters I would expect it is a case of a few bad people committing the majority of the crimes and police detection rates continue to rise.