personal property stolen from company car

catherinetnc

One of our salesmen had his company car broken into and some personal property stolen. He wants company to reimburse him for stolen property rather than make claim to his homeowner's insurance. Salesperson argues he was "on the job" when this happened, so its company's responsibility to reimburse him.
Any advice? Looks like we need a policy for this -

Thanks-
Catherine

Paul in Cannon Beach

My first response is "huh, are you crazy?" but we dont employ sales people in the field so I dont know what standard policies are for those kinds of losses. I hope others who have dealt with these situations will pipe in.

What was stolen? Let me guess, an Ipod?

Dutch2

Our response would be much like Pauls.
We, the company, are not responsible for your personal property. Makes no difference if you are at work or traveling on the road, the ee is responsible for their personal property. Suggest he contacts his personal insurance company regarding his personal property.
If you have not told your ee's this in advance, via handbook, etc... you might outta considering adding it.
Good luck.

ray a

Our travel policy states clearly the company is not responsible for personal items when on company business. If an employees car is damaged or has property stolen from in in our parking lot, we tell them they must submit the loss to their own insurance carrier.

marc

The opportunity for any EE to abuse a policy that reimbursed for stolen personal property are enormous.

I would not even consider it.

NaeNae55

I used to work at a place with underground parking. One of our doctors would always try to follow someone out instead of using his card to lift the gate. Since the person ahead had to wait for clear traffic, the gate inevitably came down on the doctor's car.

He fussed about it to the CEO and we paid for the damage. Less than a year later, it happened again. He fussed to the CEO and again, we paid for it. When it happened a 3rd time a few months later we paid again. This time the doctor was informed that it would not be paid for again. Miraculously, it never happened again.

If you want your employees to be careless with their things, by all means, pay for the stolen items.

BTW, we had a petty thief once at that same company. The thief would come around after hours and take little personal items off of people's desks. For instance, a co-worker had one of those coffee mugs with a lid which you could also use as a coaster. The lid was stolen, but not the mug. I had been tossing coins into a small jar in my drawer (which few knew about) trying to save up for a family outing. It disappeared too (and I had no idea how much was there). I was not unhappy when the company reimbursed us. In this case, about 40% of the employees had been victimized, and really, you ought to be able to leave a coaster on your desk.

We tried setting a trap for the thief, but they decided to stop while they were ahead.

Good luck!

Nae

Raymond SPHR

An employer cannot be all things to all employees at all times.

An employee's personal property is just that-personal. Losses of same should be his or her own responsibility.

You don't need a policy for this and you don't need to open up a "can of worms."

While it is unfortunate the person had their personal property stolen, it is NOT the responsibility of the employer. Have them complete police reports and turn in to their insurance carrier.

NeedCoffee

Even if you have a precedent of reimbursing someone for stolen things, you can start a policy now.

We recently had reimbursed an employee for things stolen from her office by a drifter. A few weeks later, when an EE's $1800 mountain bike was stolen, we enacted a policy to put a stop to this. Employers should not be responsible for what employees bring to work.

We wrote a policy to the effect of "personal effects brought to work are the sole responsibility of the employee, and the employer assumes no liability for said effects."

If you'd like a copy, shoot me an e-mail.

Good luck!

BetterCallHR

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 09-29-06 AT 04:56PM (CST)[/font][br][br]Just curious as to what was the resolution to this employee's request?

catherinetnc

He was reimbursed (against my advice). We also have drafted a personal property policy that indicated we are not responsible should that happen again -

System

Thanks for the update! I always like to read the last act of the drama.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com