<p>Our car was broken into on our way home from Florida. We had stopped for a late dinner and parked underneath a light in a shopping center. Nothing was showing (even took the GPS suction cup off) but with an SUV with luggage showing and our PA license plates, it was obvious that we were traveling. Anyway, thieves broke in by poking in the drivers side lock and took our laptop, GPS, wii, camera, etc. Since we were one of two families driving (the other 3 families flew in) we brought the most stuff. <em>Sigh</em> The car next to us was also broken in and a laptop was stolen from them.</p>
<p>We called our insurance company right away and are trying to gather receipts. We’ve never had anything stolen before and are not sure how replacements work. Do they assume replacement value or how old the items were? What about things that we don’t have receipts for? Of course the most important items are not the things themselves like the camera, but the pictures on the memory card and my daughters jewelry that she got when she lived in China.</p>
<p>You will need to make a claim on your homeowners ins for the “stuff” they took, not on your car insurance. Unless you had a separate policy for the laptop, you may find that you will be very unhappy with what they reimburse you for. Between the deductible and what is excluded or not covered without a rider, etc… We found that having a theft from a car is NOT good.</p>
<p>With homeowners insurance, it is best to have receipts, but you can get price quotes for things you do not have receipts for. You may have full replacement coverage, but this depends on your policy. The police report is also essential for a claim. Jewelry is often limited in coverage without a special rider or supplemental policy, but many policies include a “token” 1000-2500 limit for smaller items of jewelry. If your claim does not exceed your deductible by much, you may want to reconsider a claim, as your policy experience rating or claims free discounts may be affected, and your rates may increase. Sorry about your loss.</p>
<p>My daughter flies out of the Charlotte airport sometimes…I guess I’d better warn her not to leave any valuables in her car!!</p>
<p>I’m really sorry to hear about the theft for you…it will be a pain even if all is covered!</p>
<p>For what it is worth we had to file a claim for a water damage incident with our homeowners policy a few years ago and they were very helpful with getting things replaced. Hopefully your particular agent/representative will be a people person and help you through the process.</p>
<p>I do know that this is on our homeowners insurance and we have a $500 deductible and we did report it so have a police record number. Did you know that you can see Amazon.com orders going back 10 years?</p>
<p>If the loss is significant, to the extent it’s NOT reimbursed by insurance, you can claim it as an itemized deduction, following the tax rules. (We were burgled in our home & our losses were significantly over the maximum for our homeowner’s policy, especially the jewelry & after the deductible.) By the way, did you know insurers can waive the deductible? I’m not sure what moves them to do so, but it was once waived for us (maybe because our losses were so high compared with the coverage we had.)</p>
<p>Discuss it some more with your insurance company. When my house was broken into and some items stolen my insurance company (State Farm) had a program where you could get replacements very easily through an affiliated company. It was very easy as one could order the replacements and they were delivered to the door. Doing it this way I think they waived the deductibles or something but whatever it was, it was a good deal. They didn’t require receipts for the missing items and regardless, I was honest with them. Fortunately, not long before the break-in I photographed all of the more expensive items making sure to include brands and model numbers. This came in handy when replacing things like chain saws and other power tools.</p>
<p>Kathiep, I just read this. I am so sorry that this happened to you.</p>
<p>I have to say that we recently were in Charlotte and we stayed in hotel that I found out later had plenty of reports about robbery (room and car), but we had already prepurchased through Priceline. We were lucky, but I also warned DH after reading those stories. We were pretty uneasy about staying there, and we did unload everything from our car. That would not have been possible with your situation.</p>
<p>Sounds like you’ve gotten a lot of good advice. Not sure I have much else to offer but sympathy. Did you happen to have one of those additional rider policies on the laptop that essentially covers replacement for almost anything (spilled drinks, dropped from a lofted bed, etc). If so, you might see what it says about theft. If it is a rider on your homeowners, it might have a different, possibly no deductible. Do you have any serial numbers for the items, or can you get that from Amazon or a repair shop? If so, distribute them to the Charlotte pawn shops, and watch for your stuff on ebay and craigslist (Charlotte). I read somewhere about a gizmo you can buy for cameras, laptops, etc that allows you to track them. Too late for these, but maybe next time???</p>
<p>We do have a registration number for the laptop, at least I think I can find it. I registered it but I am not sure if it’s worth contacting pawn shops. We were surprised how disinterested the police officer was in getting more info from us in case it does turn up. My daughter and I wanted to visit dumpsters and pawn shops the next day instead of coming home.</p>
<p>Depends upon whether you have “replacement cost” insurance or not. If you have replacement cost (which I highly recommend), they will pay to replace. Otherwise, they will give you depreciated value (which is not much).</p>
<p>If you have homeowners and auto insurance with the same company, some have a combined deductible for one incident. That way, damage to the car and items stolen only have to satisfy one deductible, not separate ones.</p>
<p>Either way, you need to know the replacement cost. If you have replacement insurance, search ads for the value of the items or similar models. If you don’t have replacement cost insurance, you get replacement cost less depreciation.</p>
<p>According to my husband our insurance company will give us a value for each item after we have sent in our report with each item listed and our receipts and/or proof of ownership. Then we can either re-buy the items and if the cost is more then what the depreciated price is that they have given us, they will indeed pay the full price. For instance our wii cost about $250 new and is about 2 years old so they may say it has a depreciated value of $200. However, it still costs $250 for us to replace it so they will reimburse us the full $250. I think this means that we are insured for the replacement cost. Some things, like our GPS and laptop have gone down in price so even a depreciated price will likely get us better quality items for lower cost. I find this all pretty overwhelming. Our youngest son, meanwhile, is delighted to research a new lap top.</p>
<p>Opera Dad - Thanks for the tip about having the same company for homeowners and auto. In fact, we do have State Farm for everything.</p>
<p>I have State Farm for everything too. I have not dealt with a car break in but have made claims for two home burglaries in the past with them. I was very pleasantly surprised at how smoothly everything went. I had very few receipts, but they never questioned the evidence that I presented with regard to value. My niece’s car was broken in to last year and she had no issues with her claim either - also has State Farm. Hopefully, you will find the same to be true.</p>
<p>Note: I think there are 2 State Farms, but sold by the same agent. State Farm Casualty, and State Farm Mutual. Mutal is the better rates, and Casualty is the higher risk credits. I don’t know if the claims processing is the same.</p>
<p>You might want to think about how large the claim will be. If it is $1,000, you might want to consider eating the cost. Insurance is for what you can’t afford. Make too many claims, and the rates go up or they can cancel the policy. Especially if you have State Farm Casualty.</p>
<p>State Farm Mutual provides the car insurance. State Farm Casualty provides homeowners. You can ask your agent what the company’s policy is with regard to claims - either rate increases or dropping the policy.</p>
<p>I think we’re at around $3,000 in losses right now. We made it very easy for the thieves. The laptop, wii, ipod, and gaming accessories were all packed up in a laptop. The garmin was in a convenient pouch. My daughters stuff was all in one bag. Not that any of this was laying opened, but a quick riffling through probably took them less then 10 minutes. They overlooked a video camera probably because it was in a shopping bag next to some foodstuff. Our insurance rates are pretty low now and this will probably be the highest claim we report.</p>
<p>Remember that the suction cup on the window tells thieves that there is at least one thing in the car worth stealing. Everything else they find is just gravy.</p>
<p>So sorry for your loss. I keep my GPS unmounted so we have no suction cup. I know of others who use bean bag mounting so there is no tell-tale suction cup. </p>
<p>My brother had a canvas bag that LOOKED like a laptop bag stolen from his car & I had one stolen from my car as well. For both of us, we just had papers in the bags & they were abandonned & found by neighbors who called us because the thieves were after electronics rather than paper notes. </p>
<p>When you have a full car/van, it’s tough to keep things out of sight, but that is the general advice, especially when we’re parking at the mall or overnight anywhere (easier said than done when we have TONS of stuff). It’s caused me to haul some bulky stuff 35+ pound items out with me because the items were valued at $5000+ and I didn’t want to risk having them stolen and having to replace them–inconvenient but gave me more peace of mind.</p>