Holiday season theft: packages, cars, empty houses and what a policy pays

The holiday season is not a weather event, but it behaves like one for insurance purposes: a predictable window in which a particular kind of loss clusters. Parcels sit on doorsteps in Gilbert and Henderson for hours. Cars in mall lots in Sandy and Meridian hold shopping bags in plain view. Houses in every neighbourhood sit dark for a week while their owners visit family, with a tree lit in the window and a driveway of unbroken snow announcing it. Small retailers hold more stock and more cash than at any other time of year.

The good news is that theft is a covered peril on a homeowner, renters, auto and commercial property policy. The complications are the deductible, which often exceeds the value of a stolen parcel; the sublimits on categories of property that make good gifts; the question of which policy pays for a gift stolen from a car; and the conditions some policies attach to an unoccupied house. This guide covers each, then the prevention steps, then a hypothetical that shows when a claim is worth filing and when it is not.

What the season does

The losses tend to fall into five patterns.

• Porch theft: a parcel is taken between delivery and pickup, sometimes by someone following the delivery van.
• Vehicle break-ins: a window is broken for the shopping bags on the back seat, and the car itself takes glass and door damage.
• Burglary of an empty house: the family is away, the pattern is visible, and the entry is through a side door or a back window.
• Gift theft at gatherings, in offices and in transit: items taken from a coat pile, a car during a party, or a hotel room.
• Retail losses: shoplifting of high-value stock, a broken storefront window after hours, and employee theft when temporary staff are handling cash.

Which policy pays for what

A stolen parcel is personal property, and personal property is covered against theft on a homeowner or renters policy wherever it is, including on the porch. The claim is subject to the policy deductible, and since a typical deductible is larger than a typical parcel, the practical answer is that the retailer or the shipping carrier is the first place to turn, and the policy is for the delivery that was genuinely valuable. Some carriers now offer a small package-theft benefit with a low or no deductible as an endorsement; ask whether yours does.

Property stolen from a car is not an auto claim. The auto policy's comprehensive coverage pays for the broken window and the damaged door, less the comprehensive deductible, and pays nothing for the bags on the seat. The bags are a personal property claim on the homeowner or renters policy under the off-premises provision, often with a lower limit than property at home. A household with no renters or homeowner policy has no coverage for the contents of the car at all, which is the most common gap this season exposes.

Burglary of the house is the claim the policies were written for. The homeowner or renters policy pays for stolen contents at replacement cost if endorsed, or at actual cash value if not, and for damage to the door or window under the dwelling coverage, less one deductible. Categories of property likely to be gifts, jewelry, watches, cash, firearms, silverware, and sometimes electronics and bicycles, carry theft sublimits that can be surprisingly low; an engagement ring bought in December is worth scheduling before it is given. For a shop, a business owner's policy covers stock and the storefront against theft and vandalism, usually excludes employee theft unless an employee dishonesty or crime endorsement is added, and often carries a low limit for cash and securities.

Where a claim fails

Three situations produce denials or disputes. The first is the unoccupied-house condition: some policies suspend or limit theft and vandalism coverage after a stated number of consecutive days of vacancy, and a few require notice for absences of more than a month. A holiday week does not usually trigger this, but a house left empty from Thanksgiving to New Year is worth asking about. The second is the mysterious disappearance: property that is simply gone, with no evidence of theft, is often excluded from theft coverage unless it is scheduled. The third is proof: a claim for items with no receipt, photograph or inventory entry is an argument, and a claim for gifts bought in cash with no record is a weak one.

Two practical points follow. Keep the order confirmations for anything that matters, in a folder or an email label, because they are receipts. And file a police report for any theft, however small, because both the retailer and the carrier ask for the report number.

Prevention, in the order it pays off

Almost all of it is free.

• Deliveries: ship to a workplace, a locker, a store or a neighbour who is home; require a signature for anything valuable; use the carrier's app to hold a parcel or schedule delivery for a time you are in.
• Cars: nothing visible, ever. Put bags in the trunk before you move to the next stop, not in the lot where you will park. Park under lights near the entrance.
• The house: timers on lights, a neighbour to collect mail and clear snow, no travel posts on public social media until you are back, and a request to the local police for a vacation check where offered.
• Gifts: photograph them and keep the receipts before they are wrapped. Schedule any single item worth more than the policy's category sublimit before it changes hands.
• Shops: a visible camera, a second staff member on the floor at peak hours, frequent cash drops to the safe, and a background check on seasonal staff who handle money.
• Insurance: read the theft sublimits on the declarations page, confirm contents are at replacement cost, and ask about a package-theft endorsement and a lower deductible if the household orders online heavily.

After a theft

Report the theft to the police first and get the report number. For a parcel, contact the retailer and the shipping carrier the same day; a replacement or refund is faster than any insurance claim. For a car break-in, photograph the damage and the empty seat, list the missing items with their receipts, and report the glass damage to the auto carrier and the contents to the home or renters carrier as two separate claims. For a burglary, do not tidy before the police and the adjuster have seen the scene, secure the entry point with a temporary repair and keep the receipt, and build the list of missing items from your inventory, your photographs and your credit card statements. Report to the carrier within days, not weeks; late notice is a defence carriers use.

Then decide whether to file. A claim is worth filing when the loss exceeds the deductible by enough to justify a claim on the record, since a theft claim can affect the premium at renewal for several years. Ask us, or run the arithmetic below, before you decide.

A worked example

Suppose a Henderson household has a homeowner policy with a $1,500 deductible, contents at replacement cost and a $2,500 theft sublimit on jewelry. In December a parcel containing a $300 jacket is taken from the porch, a car window is broken in a mall lot and $900 of gifts taken from the back seat, and while the family is away for Christmas the house is burgled: a laptop, a games console, two bicycles from the garage and a $4,000 watch bought as a gift, together $8,500 at replacement cost, plus a $600 door repair.

For example, the parcel claim is below the deductible and is resolved with the retailer instead. The car window costs $400 to replace; with a $500 comprehensive deductible on the auto policy it is paid out of pocket, and the $900 of gifts is likewise below the home deductible. The burglary is the claim worth filing: $9,100 of loss, less the $1,500 deductible, with the watch capped at the $2,500 jewelry sublimit, comes to a payment of $6,100. Had the watch been scheduled in November, the sublimit would not have applied and the payment would have been $7,600. The figures are round and hypothetical; the lesson is that one of the three thefts is an insurance claim, and scheduling the gift changed its size.

The decision points

Before the season: whether contents are at replacement cost, whether any gift needs scheduling, whether the deductible fits the household's ordering habits, and whether a package-theft endorsement is available. For a household without renters insurance, whether to buy it, since the contents of a car and a parcel on a porch are both uninsured without it. For a shop, whether stock, cash and employee dishonesty limits match a December inventory. After a loss: whether the arithmetic supports a claim. We read the declarations page and run that arithmetic at no cost, and when the right answer is to call the retailer and leave the policy alone, that is what we say.