It's that time of year again when we are on the lookout for good deals, good gifts, and good shopping either for ourselves or for others. Unfortunately, this means thieves are also on the lookout, but they are looking for the perfect opportunity for parking lot pilfering, porch pirating, and personal ID theft.
Porch Pirates and How to Protect Your Belongings
According to Safewise, in 2021, Denver had the highest porch piracy rates in the nation followed by San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Seattle, and San Antonio. Porch pirates follow delivery trucks and cruise neighborhoods looking for opportunities to steal. These thieves commonly strike during working hours as many homes are empty at that time.
To protect your packages from porch pirates, consider:
- When possible, request the delivery company to hold your package at their closest pick-up facility until you can pick it up.
- Granting inside access if you order from Amazon. Amazon Prime members in select areas can sign up for Amazon Key, a service that authorizes the Amazon delivery driver to access a secure area within your home.
- Some services let you indicate where to leave your package if you’re not home. You can instruct delivery drivers to leave your package at a specific location, such as a back door, with a building superintendent or a neighbor.
- Requiring a signature for receipt. This way, packages aren’t left without someone (usually over the age of 18) signing for the package.
- If possible, many delivery services have local merchant partners, such as FedEx and UPS stores, pharmacies, and grocery stores, that can accept deliveries on their customers’ behalf.
- Have items sent to a retailer’s walk-in store for pickup.
- Signing up for alerts. Many delivery services offer text, email, and/or mobile app alerts so that you know when a package will be delivered, and you can arrange to pick up your package quickly.
Protecting Packages in Your Car
Imagine, you’ve just spent hours running around town finding the perfect gifts. You're elated with your purchases but exhausted from fighting crowds, navigating traffic and running from shop to shop. You're finally home and decide to make sure the coast is clear of friends and family before bringing in all of the purchases from your car. You only wait about 30 minutes before heading back out to your car to bring in the gifts. You get to your car only to discover shattered glass on the ground and all of the purchases missing. Unfortunately, we don’t have to imagine as this scenario has happened time and time again. Sadly, most car break-ins occur in residential areas. It takes only seconds for an opportunistic thief to break a window or punch out a lock to gain access to items left in your car.
Keys to protect you and your belongings when holiday shopping:
- Keep windows rolled up and doors locked when you come and go from the vehicle.
- Do not leave anything of value inside your car — including your phone, mail, or laptop; clearly visible items can catch the eye of a thief.
- Put all loose items or packages in your car’s trunk prior to reaching your destination.
- Park your vehicle in a well-lit, high-traffic area, away from larger vehicles or shrubs.
- Pay attention to your surroundings, if you think you are being followed to your car, go back in the store and alert security. They will happily escort you to your vehicle. If you are driving and believe you are being followed, drive to a police station, or call 911.
Protecting Yourself from Identity Theft
You feel like you are well protected this holiday season as you have a secure way of retrieving delivered packages and are practicing all recommended safety tips when out shopping. There’s just one more area to cover, and that's protecting yourself from identity theft. Identity theft can occur when a loser, I mean criminal obtains your personal information and uses it for their ill gain. This can be obtained through technology based scams or old fashioned theft, such as by stealing mail or a wallet containing your personal information.
While we will have more details on this in our upcoming blog, here are some basic tips to follow to keep yourself protected.
- Limit the amount of personal information you carry; carry only what you will need for each shopping trip
- Protect your credit card or debit card when making purchases or using an ATM by using your hand to shield personal identification numbers.
- As always, be aware of who is around you and what they are doing; some thieves have used cell phone cameras to snap pictures of cards.
- Pick up your mail regularly and have it delivered to a locked mailbox when possible
A Final Note
We know that the last few years have been hard on people and with rising costs of living, this year has been no different. If you are thinking of stealing something because you feel you deserve it, or you think that “it’s no big deal because insurance will cover it”, you're wrong. It is a big deal, not everything is covered by insurance, rising crime rates contribute to premiums and costs of goods going up along with many other things, and no insurance can cover the emotional trauma of feeling violated by crime or having your holiday ruined because of theft. Don’t steal. Be good to people, look out for each other.
Please note, the information provided here is a brief overview and not meant to be an exhaustive discussion of insurance coverages nor is it legal advice. To learn more, and get an accurate quote,
call us today.









