You’ve just clocked out from a long day at work, and you’re ready to go home and take a nice relaxing bath before settling in for the night with a good book or a favorite movie. You make your way through the parking lot to where you know you parked – only to find another car in the spot you parked in! You start glancing around, hoping that you’re only mistaken about where you parked, but there’s no sign of your car anywhere. The one thing that you never thought would happen has – your car has been stolen!
While we hope that this will never happen to us, it’s important to be prepared for the possibility. If you find that your car has been stolen, there are some very important steps that you must follow.
Contact the police
The first thing you must do after your car has been stolen is to call the police. When they arrive, the officers will have you fill out a stolen car report. Take this seriously, because your insurance company will require it before they’ll honor your claim. You’ll need to fill in some information about your car, including the make and model of your car, license plate number, any external or internal damage to the car, color, VIN number (you can get this from your insurance company if you don’t have it on you), a list of any personal identifying items that were left in your car, and anything that might help distinguish your car from others.
Contact your insurance company
Once you’ve finished the report with the police and they’ve freed you to go home, call your insurance company, even if you only have a liability policy. They’ll want the same information that the police wanted, along with a few other things, including the names of people who had access to your car and their contact details, the location of all the keys to your car, and a copy of your title.
You’ll also want to spend some time discussing the specifics of your policy coverage with them. Some policies will have coverage for a rental car you can use until your car is recovered. If yours does, you’ll need to find out how much of the rental fee they’ll cover. You’ll also need to ask your company what portion of any damages you’ll have to pay if the car is recovered damaged, and how long they wait before they consider your car unrecoverable.
Keep safe
Although you’re probably pretty upset about your car at this point, you’ve got to think about yourself as well. Keep yourself safe – especially if there were any identifiable items in your car. Even a stray piece of junk mail gives the thief enough information to case your home for valuables. Have a friend stay with you awhile, or go stay with them if you live alone. It’s always better to be safe then sorry.
Make your car unattractive to thieves
You can lower your risk of having your car stolen by making your car more trouble then its worth to steal. Instead of having a simple alarm that only goes off when a window is broken or a door is opened; get one that uses a motion detector. Never leave personal or valuable items out in the open; they only make your car more tempting to thieves. And though professional thieves can remove steering wheel locks, use one. Most would rather choose a car without one because of the extra time it takes to disable them. And finally – although it should go without saying – never leave your car running with the keys in it!
