Caravan Insurance – More Safety and Security Top Tips

There are around 3000 caravans stolen in the UK each year, and with the increasing popularity of the ‘staycation’ and the resulting surge in caravan ownerships and holidays, this figure is set to rise. Caravan owners are wise to make sure they have the best security they can to deter thieves. Below are listed ten of the very best ways you can protect your caravan, together they add up to a formidable deterrent.

* Security posts are a great idea for people who keep their caravan on their drive at home. These prevent the removal of the caravan from the drive, as they are cemented into the ground. Some have a towball on top that the caravan can be hitch-locked to, and others are either foldable or detachable to allow the caravan to move in and out of the drive.
* Hitch locks are a useful device in providing some degree of protection against opportunist thieves. You should make sure it is made of heavy steel to cover the tow socket fixing bolts, and also has a strong lock. Bear in mind that on their own though, they don’t offer a sufficient level of security for when the caravan is in storage.
* There are good wheel clamps and there are bad wheel clamps, but a rule of thumb is that generally the easier they are to put on, then the easier they are for a thief to take off. So you need to make sure that you buy a good clamp and also be sure that if fits your caravan. Beware that some wheel clamps available on the market will allow a clever thief to remove the wheel and the clamp at the same time, so don’t get one of these.
* A very good security measure is to etch either your caravan’s chassis number or your postcode on all of the caravan windows, and in a few hidden places within the caravan. You can just use a permanent marker on plywood under a your beds or inside a cupboard, as this is nearly impossible to remove. Even more subtle, you can use an ultra violet pen.
* Wheel stands offer another potential deterrent. However, don’t underestimate the tenacity of a determined caravan thief, as this alone will likely not stop them. You should make sure they are locked in place, and you should also check that your insurers are okay with you doing this, as some policies require wheel clamps to be fitted. You should also check your handbook, as some manufacturers recommend that axle stands are used for winter storage.
* Be sure to take some photographs of your caravan, in particular any distinctive features it may have. These photos can held you identify your caravan should it be stolen.
* Either paint or use some commercially available large stick-on letters to put a number on top of the van. You could use part of the caravan’s serial number, or any number that is known only to yourself. This is a great aid should the caravan be stolen as it makes it easily identifiable from aircraft and helicopters that police forces use these days.
* There are a number of companies around that offer a service that involves embedding a microchip into your caravan. These can then be identified using scanners. You will find that most caravans from 1998 onwards will have datatags fitted as standard. All previous ‘Caravan Registration and Identification Scheme’ (CRiS) registered caravans can have the datatags fitted retrospectively. There is a weakness to these schemes however, in there is no centralised network of scanners available to trace these stolen caravans.
* Tracking systems schemes involve the fitting of a secret transmitter to the caravan. This transmitter sends out a signal so that in the event of it being stolen the police are able to locate the caravan. There have been a number of notable successes using this system. There are a couple of issue this presents to caravans (rather than cars or motorcaravans), the first is that the transmitter requires battery power to be able to transmit, and the second is that the transmitter is only activated once the vehicle is reported stolen. These can be a problem if the caravan is in long-term storage, and only visited occasionally.
* You should definitely keep a record of the chassis number of your caravan, and if it is CRiS registered, you should keep these documents in a safe place away from the caravan. Any other important information should also be recorded and kept in this safe place.

The more of these ideas you implement the more likely it is that firstly your caravan will not be stolen in the first place, and secondly, if it is stolen, that it will be recovered.