Battery Pack Stolen from Prius

​I was reading an article a few weeks back about how in San Francisco battery packs from the Toyota Prius are being stolen.  You would think there would be much easier things to steal, but since I'm not in the crime syndicate who am I to judge. But, it is happening with pretty frequent regularity now and it's something to be aware of. So, what would happen with your auto insurance if this happened to you?
It seems like cars and theft have been happening since cars rolled out of the showrooms. During the gas crisis of the 70’s people had to lock their gas caps because people were siphoning gas out of the tank. Have you ever tried to siphon gas out of a car? I watched my dad try to do this once. He put a hose in the gas tank, and sucked as hard as he could. You can pretty much imagine how this ended. Yup, he ended up with a mouth full of gas.  After a few more mouthfuls he quickly gave up and headed to the gas station to fill up his gas cans.
Back to the point of this article. Theft and cars has happened for a long time. That's why auto insurance companies have offered protection for theft. And over the years the things that are stolen have changed. Wheels were big when everyone was trying to put the biggest tires on their cars back in the 90’s. Radios were big for awhile too when people were putting custom sound systems in their cars. Then for a minute catalytic converters were big theft items because some cars had high levels of gold in the systems.  Now, it seems stealing battery packs out of a Prius is a thing.
These batteries are not light. They can weigh over a hundred pounds. And apparently they can be sold online for a few thousand dollars. Thus, the desire for these items.
Now if your car gets broken into comprehensive coverage is going to pay to fix your car. It’s the same coverage that also covers if your car gets washed away in a flood, hail storm hits, your car burns up in a fire, the windshield gets broken. It’s a great coverage and surprisingly it is still relatively inexpensive.  It will cover the labor to fix what got stolen and pay for the parts too. You would just be responsible for your deductible. Most of the time it is much less expensive to buy than collision insurance. There are some exceptions to this. I was doing insurance for a Can Am the other day and the comprehensive was actually more expensive than the collision. The Can Am is an off road 4x4 vehicle. I can imagine the rates are more because trailers are a popular theft item these days. And, where do you keep your Can Am when you take it out? Yes, a trailer. Once these 4x4’s are gone it’s almost impossible to recover them.
When you are ready to get some auto insurance and if you want to talk about the best coverage options give me a call at 951-395-0754