Ep. 579 GPS Tracking Isn’t Enough: One Simple Step Can Protect Your Heavy Equipment from Theft

Rancho Mesa's Alyssa Burley sits down with Sam Clayton, Vice President of the Construction Group to talk about heavy equipment theft and ways companies can prevent it.

Show Notes: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to Rancho Mesa's Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Host: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Alyssa Burley⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Guest: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sam Clayton⁠

Editor: ⁠⁠Jadyn Brandt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music: "Home" by JHS Pedals, “Breaking News Intro” by nem0production

© Copyright 2025. Rancho Mesa Insurance Services, Inc. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Alyssa Burley: You're listening to Rancho Mesa’s StudioOne podcast, where each week we break down complex insurance and safety topics to help your business thrive. I'm your host, Alyssa Burley, and today I'm joined by Sam Clayton, Vice President of the Construction Group with Rancho Mesa. He specializes in risk management for grading/excavating, street and road, water and sewer contractors. And we're going to talk about heavy equipment theft today. Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam Clayton: Good morning, Alyssa. Glad to be back in StudioOne.

AB: We're happy to have you. Now, in a recent article, you wrote about heavy equipment theft. Why is heavy equipment theft such a major concern for your clients in the construction industry?

SC: That's a great question, Alyssa. Really, heavy equipment is vital to land improvement, street and road and water/sewer contractors. It's vital in their day-to-day operations. Outside of their employees, it's probably their second most valuable asset. And if that asset were to be stolen, it's expensive to replace it. And, you know, you have some downtime associated with that.

AB: Yeah, and we typically think of smaller tools being stolen, but heavy equipment can be just as vulnerable to theft as well.

SC: Exactly. You know, a lot of our contractors are used to like the nuisance claims, but unfortunately our contractors have all received that call on a Monday morning where their project managers showed up to a construction site and unfortunately one of their skid steers or pieces of equipment is stolen. And, you know, the downtime associated with that is, you know, dollars lost to the bottom line.

AB: Yeah, absolutely. So let's switch gears a little bit. What role does the National Equipment Register, or the NER, and its help tech program play in helping contractors prevent theft and then also recover stolen equipment?

SC: Well, think of the NER as the DMV for construction and agricultural equipment. Like, for example, our autos, you know, we register those vehicles with the DMV. If they were to be stolen and a police recovers that vehicle, they can run the license plate or the VIN number of that vehicle and associate it back to the proper owner. But with a construction and agriculture equipment, we don't have such a thing. And that's where the NER steps in. Contractors register their equipment with the NER. So in the event that that piece of equipment is stolen, the police can access that database to recover that piece of equipment.

AB: All right. So will you explain the cost and added benefits associated with registering heavy equipment with the NER?

SC: Sure. It's a really inexpensive program, in order to register up to 50 pieces of equipment, it's $250 annually.

AB: Oh, that's nothing.

SC: Right. And then, you know, up to 150 pieces of equipment, it's $450. And anything over 1 ,000 pieces of equipment is $750 annually. And our clients, Rancho Mesa clients, were associated with the NER, and they receive up to a 20 % discount off that membership. So think about it. If you wanted to register 50 pieces of equipment, it would only cost you $200.

AB: Yeah, that seems like a no-brainer that everybody should be doing that.

SC: Exactly. And another benefit is from the insurance side. Obviously, our contractors typically purchase an inland marine policy that covers their scheduled equipment, but a lot of carriers will have a theft waiver deductible if it's registered with the NER. So they'll waive the deductible up to $10,000 if that piece of equipment is registered with the National Equipment Registry.

AB: Yeah. So it sounds like everyone that has heavy equipment should be registering it today.

SC: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's really easy and it's a great way to improve your risk profile, not only pre-loss, but post-loss.

AB: All right. Well, Sam, if listeners have questions about protecting their heavy equipment, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

SC: Sure. You can give me a call at (619) 937-0167 or email me at sclayton@ranchomesa.com.

AB: All right. Well, Sam, thank you for joining me in StudioOne.

SC: Thanks, Alyssa.

SC: Thanks for tuning in to our latest episode produced by StudioOne. If you enjoyed what you heard, please share this episode and subscribe. For more insights like this, visit us at RanchoMesa .com and subscribe to our weekly newsletter.