Gone
It seems likely that my camera and a gps unit have been stolen from our car. I’m not quite sure when this happened but the last time I definitely saw or used the camera was when I cut Lego Lover’s hair about two weeks ago. I usually carry it in my backpack purse or stick it in the storage space between the front seats in the car or keep it on my desk. It hasn’t been seen in any of those places for a while now. Â I noted it wasn’t where I expected it to be a week ago or more but thought I might have misplaced it. Yesterday I went to use the gps and it wasn’t there which shifted my suspicion towards theft. My guess is the car doors were accidentally left unlocked at some point and an opportunist came along. And since I am the one using the car the most, it quite likely was my mistake. I am currently debating whether to file an insurance claim or not. There’s a deductible and will likely be some penalty fee for it being stolen from a unlocked car…I seem to recall that being the case the first time we were burgled years ago. But the camera had enough value despite being a few years old to consider it.
3 Comments
Valerie
Ouch — much sympathy!!
In the US, I’d hesitate to make an insurance claim for the theft, because I’ve heard that making any claim for any reason causes insurance premiums to go up by quite a lot. Also, unless it was a really amazing camera, its value would be surprisingly low, so insurance would not pay all that much for it. Camera technology is getting so much better and cheaper so quickly that the last time I had to replace my camera (which was years ago now), the replacement cost only half of what I’d expected to pay, and it had far more neat features than I’d expected to get. So, if you were in the US, I’d recommend buying a new camera and GPS and not making an insurance claim.
However, I’m sure that the rules in Australia are different, so I don’t know that the same reasoning would apply.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents worth. Your mileage may vary. :)
Purple Lorikeet
The matter was rather decided for me when we discovered our home and contents insurance had lapsed!!! Seems it’s a blessing in disguise in the end. The bank where we organised our insurance changed companies a while back and we opted not to go there but keep the policy we had. But it seems the old policy didn’t stay on and we never realised it…Which goes to show we need to pay more attention to some things. So we’ve been uninsured for house and contents and wouldn’t have known it until serious need had this not occurred.
I don’t recall getting full replacement value those times we had break ins years ago. On one occasion we were sent to a major (expensive) electronics retailer to replace items. Our big items were replaced well enough but I imagine we got rather short-changed on some of the smaller items. I don’t think our premiums went up the first couple of times but did after the third one.
I’m just going to buy a new camera once I work out which one I want to buy. Will probably get a new gps when we find a decent one on sale. Thinking we will try Garmin this time as the Tom Tom was a bit slow to find a signal…although that might be the same for Garmin here.
By the way, I realised there was also a birthday card for Game Fanatic that had been given to me ahead of time a couple weeks ago when I away from home and I hadn’t brought it into the house. That probably had $20 in it. :(
Valerie
Weird how having a couple of items stolen has gone from a hassle to a blessing in disguise. :-)