How to prevent metal theft
We discuss why metal theft remains a serious risk and how your Real Estate customers can combat it.
Although significant efforts have been made in recent years to tackle metal theft, it remains a major risk for organisations across the UK.
In England and Wales, the Scrap Metal Dealers Act was introduced in October 2013 to make it harder for thieves to sell stolen metal. It requires dealers to hold a licence to trade and gives councils extra powers to deal with rogue operations.
In Scotland, new regulations banning the use of cash to buy and sell scrap metal came into force on 1 September 2015.
Which properties do metal thieves target?
The types of premises being targeted most frequently include:
- Historic buildings, especially churches
- Out-of-town retail units
- Vacant or isolated industrial units
Robin Edwards, who runs a consultancy advising organisations on how to combat metal theft, says: "Copper and lead are the two metals that thieves most frequently target, as they are the easiest to steal with the highest value."
Damage and clean-up costs add to metal theft risk
For property owners, the greatest losses often result from the trail of destruction that thieves leave behind. As we have discussed previously, squatting on commercial properties is not a crime and it can take businesses several weeks to evict intruders using the civil courts.
Pauline White, Managing Underwriter, Real Estate Insurance at Zurich, says this drawn-out process gives thieves time to strip a property of its valuable metal and cause significant damage to the fabric of a building.
"It's vital you do whatever you can to disrupt the thieves' operations so they go elsewhere in search of a soft target," Robin Edwards, former Deputy Lead for the National Metal Theft Taskforce Pauline says: "The theft of the metal itself has almost become the lesser part of the loss.
"We have seen a worrying trend this year in metal theft losses increasing, together with associated damage to the buildings and clean up costs. In some cases the losses have reached six figures."
How to prevent metal thefts
Should thieves manage to make off with a haul of valuable metal, it is almost inevitable they will target the same premises again, says Robin. "It's vital you do whatever you can to disrupt the thieves' operations so they go elsewhere in search of a soft target," he says.
Security measures that should be considered include:
- Intruder alarms
- Concrete blocks (to slow down intrusion)
- Monitored CCTV
- 24-hour security guarding
In addition, your customers should ensure they carry out regular and thorough inspections of any vacant properties. This is something that many insurers, including Zurich, insist on when providing commercial property cover.
Customers with larger portfolios may also want to consider using data analytics to help prioritise their spending on security measures.
Robin says: "I have worked with a utility company that uses crime mapping so that it can evaluate which of its substations are at greatest risk from thieves and focus its resources accordingly."
How Zurich can help
Our Risk Engineers can work with your customers to help identify where they may be vulnerable to metal thieves.
Pauline says: "Despite the introduction of the Scrap Metal Dealers Act, metal thefts have not gone away.
"We are liaising with the Association of British Insurers to exert political pressure to get metal thefts higher up the national agenda, so that more resources are made available to tackle the problem."
For more information, or to discuss any aspect of this article further, speak to your local Zurich contact.
