Securing Your Outside Property to Avoid Home Insurance Claims

Most people don’t give too much thought to their outer property, i.e. their garden – front and back – any alleyway access and garden sheds, forgetting that in sheds for example there can be a lot of expensive possessions, such as power tools, golf clubs, pushbikes and even motorbikes. If you are unfortunate enough to be the victim of burglary, then the safety net of house insurance is some comfort; that doesn’t mean you’ll particularly relish the thought of having to claim on it however, considering your premiums and phone bill will rise as a result. With this in mind, it’s worth taking some simple precautions to deter thefts, some of which are recommended by the police:

• An alarm that is designed specifically for sheds, which usually operate via a key fob or keypad on the unit itself.

• Any tools or equipment that belong in the shed such as lawnmowers, trimmers, garden shears etc., should always be put back after they’ve been used, especially after dark. Ladders in particular should be locked away, due to their propensity for use by burglars to reach upstairs windows in residential areas.

• Bigger items in the shed, such as again lawnmowers, push bikes or heavy power tools, should be joined together with a chain and padlocked to make them more difficult to escape with.

• After the shed has seen any use, double check it is locked before locking the outer doors of the house itself.

Sheds are susceptible to break-ins for many reasons, such as screws which are uncovered, rusty or non-security, old wood that is easily removed sometimes in entire sections, and hasps that also don’t have covered screws.

Where possible, incorporating high hedgerows and solid walls around the property will make it difficult for thieves to take items away from the garden, and using gravel on driveways acts as a natural alarm.

Shed windows should be covered so that potential thieves can’t see what’s inside, and the actual shed building should be placed in view of the back windows in the house, as a hidden shed is a much more tempting target.