Author, Drew Garcia, Vice President, Landscape Group, Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc.

A piece of heavy equipment like a skid steer, backhoe, or excavator can be a vital tool for a landscape company and is expensive to replace, if stolen. According to the National Equipment Register (NER), heavy equipment is nine-times more likely to be stolen than vandalized and five-times more likely to be stolen than encounter fire damage. These statistics are alarming and prove theft of heavy equipment has now become a billion dollar illegal industry.