The car and house is alarmed and locked tight – but are your clients covered in the case of flower theft? If they live in upscale Riverdale in Toronto, you may want to offer coverage.
Armand Rahman has had five or six plants plundered from his garden beside his Riverdale home in Toronto this summer – expensive, imported plants, including a cactus brought from California and a single bamboo cane.
“Most commercial insurance policies have an extension to cover growing plants or trees in the open,” says Chris Westrop, the commercial department manager with Park Insurance Agency in Burnaby, B.C. “Some home insurers will provide coverage for trees, plants and shrubs; however there is a limitation for any one item and the claims would be subject to the policy deductible.”
Unfortunately for Rahman, the stolen plants – although expensive and unique – aren’t worth filing an insurance claim for, says Westrop.
“Someone would need to steal a fair few plants to hit the policy deductible,” he told InsuranceBusiness.ca.
“They don’t go after the $5.99 little flowers, but the $20 or $30 plants,” Rahman, a pharmaceutical consultant, told the Globe & Mail. “They dig (them) up very carefully with scoops, and even put the soil back in again!” (continued.)
Rahman posted a note on his fence requesting thieves to keep away from the garden, which seemed to work – until the major July storm that hit Toronto washed the sign away; and two more plants disappeared quickly after.
Garden supply stores, such as the East End Garden Centre in Leslieville, have reported that customers have been victim of runaway flower baskets.
Public gardens like the Leslie Street Spit Allotment Gardens, the Toronto Botanical Garden and Parkview Neighbourhood Garden have also fallen victim to green-leaf thievery.
The expense involved in gardening is what is seen as driving such theft.
“If you look at the prices of flowers and gardening equipment, it’s incredibly expensive,” Rahman says. “If you track how expensive it is now just to plant in the city, it’ll cost you hundreds of dollars.”
