hera ’ second our 10-point design to enact when your car is n’t where you expect it to be. KEY TAKEAWAYS
- More than 700,000 vehicles are reported stolen in the U.S. each year.
- Report your stolen car to the police immediately and then notify your insurer, lender and DMV.
- You are still responsible for making car payments on the stolen car.
- Continue to pay for insurance coverage until the car is either recovered or considered a total loss by the insurer.
- Take proper precautions to avoid making your car an easy target for theft.
Ensure your vehicle is really stolen
You are stunned, of course. You are muttering and pacing, “ My cable car was stolen. person steal my car. What the heck ? ” You ’ re typing into your earphone ’ s search engine, “ Does policy cover stolen car ? 
Before you panic besides much, call 911 or study up on how to create a severe hex for a car thief, you might want to save a little embarrassment and confirm your vehicle has actually been stolen. Insurance.com manage editor program, Ashlee Tilford learned that embarrassing example when on her first day of college she finished the day merely to find her car had vanished. “ I could n’t believe my eyes. My car was barely gone. A hundred things ran through my mind. Did I lock it ? Did I leave a window cracked ? How did person steal it ? I ended up at the campus police department to report my steal car, only to discover my car had been towed due to illegal parking. Whoops. ” Granted, time is of the perfume, and indeed if you ’ ra sure, whip out your phone ( hopefully you didn ’ metric ton leave it in the car ) and call the police .
What to do if your car is stolen
Report the stolen car to the police
once you have confirmed that your cable car has been stolen, call the police immediately to report the larceny. not lone will you need the patrol report late, but it will give law enforcement officers an opportunity to keep an eye out for the steal vehicle. You will need to be prepared to provide them detailed information on the vehicle and the placement it was last seen .
Contact your auto insurance company and lender
This should be your identical following move after the police. “ Call right after making the patrol composition, ” advises Penny Gusner, consumer analyst with Insurance.com. “ If you wait, it may look leery. ” If your car is financed, as noted, notify your lender ampere well. It ’ mho merely a good mind, though, um, yeah, you ’ ll placid have to make your payments. Sorry to tell you that, but larceny does n’t affect what your savings bank is owed. That ’ randomness why lenders require that you purchase comprehensive and collision coverage. Your obligation to the fiscal institution ends only when the loanword is repaid, whether you have a car in the driveway or not. even if you entirely carry indebtedness, you should calm call your policy company, Gusner says, to protect yourself if the thief causes damages to other people or property with your fomite. typically, if you weren ’ thymine negligent, you ’ re not responsible for damage caused by the thief. When you contact your insurer, have the following information handy:
- Date and time of the theft
- Location of the vehicle
- Location of all keys to the car
- Title to the car
- Names and contact information for anyone who had access to the vehicle
- Detailed description of the car and its condition when it was stolen
- Contact information for your financing company if the car is financed
- Police report number
Inform the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
The next authoritative step is to notify the Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV keeps a database of steal vehicles. This database helps to ensure you do n’t have future possession or title issues with the vehicle and is particularly useful if person tries to register the steal fomite .
Check for possible CCTV recordings
In this age of quickly expanding technology, it is common for businesses of all kinds to have security cameras installed outside of their business. Let ‘s put it this means, in most cities, person somewhere is watching. This could be a park distribute or garage, street park, or even parking near an ATM that has a camera. It is worth checking with any businesses near where you were parked to see if they might have captured the car thief on camera .
Track your car with a GPS tracking device
New cars are loaded with engineering. Many of them can help the police locate your fomite. General Motors ’ OnStar system or Toyota ‘s Safety Connect are examples. Hyundai ‘s Blue Link can help police locate the car and even reduce the engine power to slow it down. many new cars have similar features ; check with the police to see if your vehicle can help you find it. Some pay-as-you-drive car indemnity plans – the kind that measures your mileage and driving behavior – include GPS tracking as a way to deliver wayside aid or summon an ambulance. They can besides help track a steal car. Others, like Progressive ’ south Snapshot, don ’ triiodothyronine use GPS at all. last, if you ’ ve bought an aftermarket tracking device, such as LoJack, this is where it pays off. not lone do car insurers reserve their biggest anti-theft discounts for devices that actively locate a steal car, but some manufacturers will besides refund the price of the device or even pay you a liquidation if the car international relations and security network ’ triiodothyronine recovered .
What happens when I report my car stolen?
What happens following depends on whether your vehicle is recovered or not .
What happens if your car is stolen and never found?
As you would expect, once you call the police, they ’ ll come to wherever you are, and you ’ ll file a report with them. Give them a detail description of the fomite american samoa well as the VIN and license plate count. The police will take down all relevant details, and then the search is on. The big question you ‘ll then have is — will I always see my stolen fomite again ? And : will the patrol evaluator me for my spinal column seat ? seriously, there are a bunch of debauched food wrappers bet on there, and a couple of empty bags of chips when I went on that road trip… We ’ ll see what the authorities say about your back seat, but the odds of you seeing your stolen vehicle again are… eh. not severe, but not good either. progressive Insurance analyzed its car indemnity claims several years ago and found that roughly 46% of stolen cars were recovered nationwide. Recovery rates varied widely by state. If you live in Washington, with a 71% recovery rate, your chances are good. not then a lot in Michigan (19%). The NHTSA cites slightly higher recovery rates based on more recent datum. It says 59% of steal vehicles are recovered. The patrol will add your vehicle information to country and national databases that will make it harder for the thieves to sell your vehicle. But what happens if you file a comprehensive claim for your steal car, buy a fresh one and then your old vehicle is found ?
What happens when your car is stolen and then found?
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If your steal vehicle is found, immediately notify your insurance company. Comprehensive will pay to repair your vehicle if the thieves managed to put in a few fresh dents. You would owe the deductible total. Most policy companies have a waiting period of 30 days before declaring the cable car gone for good. After that orient, your insurance company will pay out the “ honest market value ” of your car – the price an identical car would bring on the open market. It ’ randomness reasonably negotiable if you can find comparable values. Your deductible will come out of the policy colonization check, and therefore will anything owed to lienholders. Most comprehensive examination claims won ’ metric ton drive up your rates, Megna says. unfortunately, any valuables left in your vehicle, like a cell call or laptop, normally are n’t covered. But your homeowner ‘s insurance or renters insurance might kick in. Your car may be found after you settle the claim. If then, the car belongs to the policy company .
Does car insurance cover theft?
What is a steal car indemnity payout ? It depends. It could be a draw or nothing at all. Comprehensive coverage will pay to replace your vehicle. You will have to pay the deductible amount you chose, and then your insurance company will pay you the actual cash value of your cable car. “ Comprehensive is a lot, much cheaper to buy than indebtedness or collision, ” says Michelle Megna, editorial conductor at Insurance.com. “ And it ’ s pretty much a catch-all for everything that happens to a car that ’ s not a collision : larceny, vandalism, fire, even hitting a deer. ” Insurance.com ‘s rate data show that the average driver ’ s annually expending on comprehensive coverage is $ 192, though that come varies by state and the value and larceny phonograph record of the car insured. Most insurance companies will sell you comprehensive coverage even if you don ’ t buy collision. “ If I drove a theft-prone car like an older Honda, I ’ five hundred call it money well-spent, ” Megna says. If you carry only indebtedness, we have bad news : convalescence of the car is your only hope. There is no steal car insurance payout. additionally, don ’ thyroxine expect a rental to be covered unless you ’ ve bought rental reimbursement coverage or your policy happens to include it. even then, you ’ re typically limited to no more than 30 days with daily limits of $25 to $30. So you ’ ll credibly be replacing your stolen vehicle before besides long unless you want to drive around a rental indefinitely .
Keep up the insurance and loan payments for the stolen car
You should keep making both your policy and car payments until the case is resolved. You ’ ll want to keep up your indemnity payments for a couple of reasons. beginning, if you intend to replace your cable car, a gap in coverage greater than 30 days will sharply increase the measure you can expect to pay for policy. Some carriers won ’ triiodothyronine reach a driver not presently insured, Megna says. second, your personal insurance coverage typically covers you in a rent car arsenic well. otherwise, you might need to buy liability and collision coverage through the lease agency. last, until you suspend the registration on the car, you are obligated in virtually every submit to keep at least liability coverage on it. You will besides need to continue making payments to your lender for the car if you have a car loan .
Prepare for the third degree
Expect some baffling questions if your claim appears even slightly fishy. Do n’t take it personally. roughly $ 80 billion in deceitful indemnity claims ( not fair cable car policy ) are made every class, according to the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud. A fair total of car larceny claims are what the industry calls “ owner give-ups ” – thefts made with the cooperation of the insured owner. Investigators may look into your fiscal history, such as late payments, or your telephone records and posts you may have made on social media. Adjusters will much record conversations, and at times it may feel like an interrogation. Among the potential red flags for investigators :
- The vehicle was recently put up for sale.
- The vehicle is over mileage on a lease.
- The driver’s license was recently suspended..
- Recent increases in coverage.
- Delinquent payments.
- Police were not notified, or not notified immediately.
But here ’ s another red flag – not answering investigators ’ questions. so answer them deoxyadenosine monophosphate well as you can, and with any luck, they ’ ll find the reprobate who stole your car. And then you can stop asking questions like, “ Does cable car indemnity cover larceny ? ” and “ What happens when your car is stolen and recovered ? ” And rather, you can start asking questions like, “ Thanks to my steal car insurance payout, I wonder what tinge I want my future car to be ? ” Or : “ Is there anything I can do to make certain I never have this happen again ? ” And, of course, the answer is – make indisputable you have stolen car indemnity. Having your vehicle stolen is a icky thing to have to deal with, but if you have the right car policy policy, it can be less icky .
How to reduce the chances of your car being stolen
here are a few ways to discourage thieves from stealing your cable car :
- Keep your car locked at all times.
- Never leave your keys in the vehicle.
- Make sure valuables are not visible in the car.
- Do not leave the title in the vehicle.
- Park in well-lit and well-known areas.
- Install an anti-theft system in the vehicle.
- Have the VIN etched in the vehicle’s glass.
- Track your car with a GPS tracking device.
Frequently asked questions
What should you do if you see a car that you suspect was stolen?
If you see a vehicle that you have rationality to believe was stolen, report it to the local anesthetic patrol .
What happens if your car is stolen and you still owe money?
unfortunately, when your car is stolen you are calm obligated to make payments on it. If your policy claim payout is approved, you can use the claims check to pay against any measure owed. If the payout sum is less than the sum financed, it will be your duty to pay the difference. If you have gap policy, check with your policy agentive role to see if it will cover the remainder.
How often are stolen cars found?
Statista reports that in 2019, 56.1% of steal vehicles were recovered. however, that does not mean the reclaim vehicles were not damaged. Sources: Vehicle larceny prevention report by NHTSA