McCarron Coates in cargo theft reporting plea

By Categories: Commercial NewsPublished On: Thursday 18 August 2022

Fleet transport insurance specialist McCarron Coates has called for cargo theft incidents to be given their own tag within crime reports.

The insurance broker says it wants firm action on a crime costing freight operators around £115m a year in the physical cost of stolen freight alone. According to the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service (NAVCIS), this cost is the tip of the iceberg and the more realistic ‘actual’ cost of cargo theft is £724m, taking into account the 4,500 cargo crimes per year of which NAVCIS is made aware.

This actual cost involves reputational damage for the haulier and potentially the brand whose goods are stolen, says McCarron Coates; and further costs arise when hauliers have no access to vehicles having to receive post-theft repairs to curtains or diesel tanks, while loss of contracts is another financial hit.

Whilst customers whose goods are stolen can potentially recoup their losses through insurance, the losses experienced by an HGV operator, already working on very tight margins, can be catastrophic, adds the firm.

One major issue in combating freight crime is that it has no distinct classification within Home Office reporting figures, the company contends, so consequently goes under the radar – but changing the reporting regime would be hugely difficult.

McCarron Coates, having liaised with NAVCIS, wants the government and the police to close a loophole that it says criminal gangs are exploiting because they know a ‘theft from vehicle’ is often not investigated.  The broker is calling for a tag to be applied within police reports, to mark a cargo theft as a freight crime and not just a ‘theft from vehicle’.

This is one simple action that the broker says would enable NAVCIS to identify cargo theft quicker and be able to act on reports faster, especially if police forces pass the information on.

Such fast action is said to be key for NAVCIS, which talks about the ‘golden hours’ after a cargo theft has taken place –in which they are most likely to be able to identify the gang, or track down the stolen goods before they are ‘slaughtered’ and sold on.

NAVCIS is also the only organisation that can join the dots between reports of thefts taking place and the subsequent discovery of goods, weeks later, says McCarron Coates; so furnishing the team with cargo theft tags on crime would make a huge difference.

The broker’s attempts to raise the profile of cargo crime in this way have been praised by insurer, NMU, which liaises with NAVCIS on a continual basis, on behalf of clients impacted by freight crime.

NMU’s risk control manager, Ian Allman, said: “We are pleased to see McCarron Coates taking a lead on this, as it is an issue too readily ignored by policymakers and implementors.

“It is costing the UK economy millions of pounds and the additional hidden costs of business disruption are often not recoverable. Action on freight crime must become a priority.”

McCarron Coates director, Ian McCarron, added: “In 2021, we saw how crucial HGV operators are to the UK’s goods supply line, with driver shortages blamed for empty supermarket shelves.  Yet, nobody really cares about the goods stolen and lost en route to their destination.

“We urge the government and individual police forces to recognise how serious freight theft is and clamp down on it by applying a tag, recording the crime as cargo theft in their reports and quickly liaising with NAVCIS.”

McCarron Coates also recently called on the government to do more to provide truly secure parking for the UK’s HGVs, via centralised funding.

Pointing out that a quarter of all freight crime offences take place at motorway service stations, according to NAVCIS figures, the broker said that the most frequently stolen commodity there, and in freight crimes in general, was diesel.  With the soaring price of diesel in 2022, this has become an even more lucrative commodity; and in 2020, goods totalling more than £16m were stolen from motorway service stations alone.

However, half of all freight crime offences in 2020 were from HGVs parked up elsewhere, a further 12 per cent were from secure yards, and seven per cent were from truck stops.

Ian McCarron added that freight crime was: “funding far too many other criminal activities and ruining the livelihoods of many HGV operators who are keeping the UK supply chain going…

“We… need the government to find the funds to deliver secure – not safe – HGV parking and invest in the infrastructure fast.”

www.mccarroncoates.com