Sample Page Title

This submit is a part of a sequence sponsored by IAT Insurance coverage Group.

Late at evening within the Fall of final 12 months, thieves stole 13 ECM models from a fleet of economic vehicles in Chicago. Whereas cameras recorded the theft, no person checked the feed through the hour-long crime. Consequently, the thieves obtained away with roughly $100,000 of stolen items.

An ECM, or Digital Management Module, is a pc in a truck’s engine that displays and controls its transmission, braking, and different programs crucial for the truck’s primary operation. Vans received’t begin with out one and the prices are excessive to exchange. A brand new ECM can take as much as 30 hours of labor to put in and prices round $9,000 in supplies alone. The actual value of ECM theft should additionally embody misplaced income as a consequence of downtime whereas the truck is out of fee. A scarcity of alternative ECMs solely provides to the issue.

ECM theft is rising in frequency nationwide, notably in Freightliner vehicles, because it takes simply seven minutes to take away an ECM from below a Freightliner’s dashboard. Non-Freightliners’ ECMs are tougher to entry, however thieves have developed strategies to steal them as nicely.

Luckily, ECM theft prevention is less complicated than you may anticipate. Taking the best precautions can probably save your online business 1000’s of {dollars} in enterprise interruption and direct monetary loss.

Defending your online business from ECM theft

Keep a step forward of ECM thieves by defending your fleet with these 4 measures:

1. Safe your autos

Contemplate including these primary safety measures to your fleet:

• Lock your autos when not in use, particularly in a single day.
• Park your vehicles in a way that makes accessing the cab harder. As an example, park near a wall or one other automobile.
• Rent safety for the vacations when extra vehicles are idle and on web site. Thieves typically goal business vehicles over holidays after they know they received’t be in use with much less on-site safety.
• Set up cameras alerting your online business to exercise in your yard throughout non-operating hours. Rent somebody to watch it throughout these high-risk intervals and alert authorities after they detect suspicious conduct.
• Maintain parked autos in well-lit areas with restricted entry to unauthorized events. Contemplate putting in fences round your lot and utilizing a gated entry system.

2. Use anti-theft bolts

4 bolts safe Freightliner ECMs. Thieves look forward to finding these normal bolts and are available ready with the best instruments for straightforward removing. Catch them off guard through the use of an alternate anti-theft bolt.

Anti-theft bolts are sometimes made to order. Normal instruments received’t work on them, so it’s tougher for thieves to steal ECMS secured by them.

3. Contain legislation enforcement

Maintain legislation enforcement within the loop if ECM theft happens. The police can examine and probably recuperate the stolen ECMs in case you alert them rapidly sufficient. It additionally helps in monitoring patterns of those thefts, which permits legislation enforcement to raised allocate assets towards stopping them.

Phrase will get round rapidly amongst thieves. In the event that they know your online business is reporting each incident of ECM theft, they could transfer on to a neater goal.

4. Name Freightliner

Right here’s one other potential deterrent towards future crimes in case you’ve been hit by ECM thieves: Freightliner can remotely disable your ECMs to allow them to’t be offered. Name 1-800-385-4357 to report the theft. All you want is the truck’s VIN.

Remotely disabling the ECM renders it nonfunctional. This makes it ineffective to the thief and reduces the probabilities of them focusing on your fleet once more.

ASK A LOSS CONTROL REPRESENTATIVE

Have a query on how you can mitigate danger? E-mail losscontroldirect@iatinsurance.com for an opportunity to see your query answered in a future weblog.

By Tom MacCallum

Matters
Fraud