IRDAI License Number: IRDAI/INT/ISNP/2022/250
Building a house, property or business can takes months and years of toiling and hard work. Just one incident can have serious consequences financially in your personal or commercial life. Hence insuring your most important assets are extremely important with a burglary insurance policy. But did you know theft and burglary are two different terms? If theft is committed in your premises your burglary insurance may not cover it. In this blog, we will know what is the difference between theft and burglary and how to add theft provision in your burglary insurance policy and comprehensively cover your property from both burglary and theft.
Many of us use the words burglary and theft interchangeably but the two words have a different meaning in the books of insurance and law. Burglary is mainly defined as break-in the property or premises through forcible or violent means. So for example – a person breaks in the house by breaking the window and then break opens the cupboard to steal then it will be considered as a case of burglary. Another example – two persons enter office premises in the wee hours of the morning and break open the main gate lock and gain entry to the premises. They collect 5 office laptops and run away from the premises. This case will be considered as burglary and the insured will be able to get the claim from the insurance company.
On the other hand, theft generally means a person committing the crime did not force entry in your premises. For example – a homeowner is talking on the phone when leaving the house. She is so engaged in the conversation that although she locks the door but leaves the key in the door. A robbery is committed in the house but as there is no forceful entry the burglary claim will be rejected as there was no entry through forceful or violent means. The insurer will name it as a case of negligence on part of the insured and may reject the claim for burglary insurance. Another example – A factory has work of solar panels installation going on their premises. A couple of people entered the premises posing as workers and steal cables and other pieces of equipment from the site. This case will again be treated as a case of theft and claim can be rejected under burglary insurance in case theft extension is not applied to the main burglary insurance policy.However, insurers do offer to cover theft insurance as an add-on cover in burglary insurance for payment of extra premium. This add-on cover in burglary insurance is known as theft extension.
Theft and burglary both are different terms in insurance terms and insurance companies treat them as different covers. Many times policyholders often get confused and assume coverage for theft and burglary is the same. Therefore it is absolutely necessary to understand the coverage, inclusions, exclusions of the policy before signing it. If there is a doubt in mind then do speak to insurance experts to avail the right insurance cover for your requirements.
