Gardien Ltd. the UK's leading specialist in garden security, has issued a warning that levels of garden crime - and theft, in particular, could reach an all-time high during the coming months. This, in turn, will focus public attention on the levels of cover offered by insurers and in many cases, especially the victims of garden crime, may well provoke strong feelings of resentment.
Former Police Officer, Mick Gains QPM - a Crime Prevention expert and Security Director at Gardien Ltd maintains that "the rising levels of garden theft over recent years are now being supplemented by a more immediate threat - that of "metal theft".
This is a new crime trend sweeping both rural and urban communities fuelled by the economic growth of countries such as India and China with their insatiable and expensive appetite for raw materials. The cost of scrap lead, for example, has now reached a 27 year high at over £1000 a tonne. Such is the enormity of this crime wave that the Association of Chief Police Officers has recently issued guidance to UK forces in addressing this problem"
Bill Seddon, MD of Gardien Ltd., warns that: "Our gardens are easy targets for both the professional and opportunist thief. We are receiving an increasing number of theft alerts for metal items such as gates, urns, benches, garden rollers, lead from sheds and outbuildings etc. Basic security precautions, as outlined on our website www.garden-security.co.uk , will help prevent the majority of them.
Under such circumstances, it is inevitable that public attention will be drawn to how they, individually, will be affected - in particular, with regard to their own level of insurance cover for outdoor items. Such is the diversity of cover in areas such as Items in the Open, Plants & Trees, Items in Outbuildings, Garden Antiques etc that Gardien have undertaken a review of over 50 insurance providers with the inevitable "mixed bag" of offerings.
Several companies addressing the High Net Worth clientele are obviously offering appropriate levels of cover required by their clients albeit at an appropriate premium - indeed, a number of such products impose no limits at all.
However, in the majority of cases (ie over 30 of the companies reviewed) cover for the above categories was either excluded or - at best, minimal. We feel it inevitable, therefore, that in a climate of escalating garden crime together with increasing levels of expenditure on garden related products, there will be understandable resentment from clients who find out - after the event, that they were inadequately covered. To the best of our knowledge, all current "garden" policies are linked to Household policies. Therefore, companies failing to recognise and address the issue of garden crime - at the appropriate premium, may well be jeopardising their core business.
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