Monthly Archives: January 2015

automotive, residential

Does Your Insurance Cover Locksmith Work?

We frequently get asked whether we take insurance coverage or not. Since it varies we figured we would write about which insurance we do accept, the situations in which they are applied and a little bit about how the process works.

To cover the highlights, we always strongly prefer to accept payment directly from you and then have you submit for reimbursement with our receipts. If the insurance company contacts us for the work and offers to pay that is also acceptable for us. We cannot bill people who did not authorize the work.

On the quick notes, we do bill State Farm car insurance for lockouts and service calls because they work with and pay non contracted vendors.

On to the more specific situations.

The most common situations we get asked about for insurance coverage are: (a) car lockouts, (b) lost car keys and (c) theft of keys and re-keying both for vehicles and homes.

Car Lockouts and Lost Car Keys

For car lockouts most insurance companies have contracted emergency roadside assistance providers that cover this. Many do cover the service call or up to certain limits for lost keys. Most have client reimbursements for these items.Here is a chart of the major and most common car insurance companies in Oregon and their coverage:

Carrier  Roadside Assistance Unlocks Key Replacement Reimburse Vendor Reimburse Client Contracted Vendor
State Farm Yes Yes service call, not keys Yes Yes Yes
Farmers Yes Yes varies No Yes Yes
Geico Yes Yes varies No Yes Yes
Progressive Yes Yes service call, not keys No Yes Yes
Esurance Yes up to $75 up to $75 No Yes Yes
21st Century Yes Yes up to $150 No Yes Yes
Oregon Mutual Optional Yes service call, not keys No Yes Yes
PEMCO Yes Yes No No Yes Yes
AAA Yes Yes $50 to $100 coverage No Yes Yes
All State Optional $52/yr or $84/service $52/yr or $84/service No No Yes
Liberty Mutual Optional Yes No No No Yes

*note, these are what we have gathered from online, phone and in person research. Our information may not be 100% correct. We strongly recommend talking in depth with each company to very and receive more details about their emergency roadside assistance coverage.

Theft of Keys and Re-keying

Occasionally vehicle or house keys are damaged or stolen. This occurrence is very policy specific. We recommend contacting your agent. But here is what we have seen.

Vehicle keys can be covered if they were damaged for the same reason the vehicle is being repaired.

Vehicle re-keys and home re-keys can be covered under you home insurance policy. Normally the cost of the deductible is higher than the out of pocket cost of going direct, but we have had customers with this coverage.

A Little Bit About the Process

Most of the major insurance companies contract out their roadside assistance to service provides like Road America, AAA or Agero. Some operate there own fleet and/or further contract to smaller local towing and locksmith companies like ourselves.

So if you really push your insurance company to initially cover all the work and then have you pay the difference of what is not covered, we do receive and work for the large service providers that you originally call us about.

Overall if you want to have your insurance cover our services you need to contact and work through them and have them contact us directly. If you have an Oregon based State Farm coverage that is current and you are the authorizing individual we will bill them directly as long as you accept full responsibility for payment if your request is denied. If you do not want to go through the hassle at the moment you can check whether they reimburse you, pay us directly and then send the receipt in for reimbursement.

We hope this sheds some light on the insurance coverage for specific situations and how it works from the locksmith perspective.

commercial

Aluminum Storefront Door Security Reinforcement to Prevent Break-ins

Image

Over the last couple of months there have been a series of aluminum store front break-ins at night. The person(s) has been using a crowbar to bend, break and move back the single point of latching to clear the frame on single and double aluminum store front doors on multiple businesses in Eugene. From our perspective as locksmiths it may be the same person, or it is at least a similar style of break in entry. But we will leave this to the police. to decide.

In this post, we are going to cover the standard aluminum store front door sets, the common points of securities, followed by different ways to increase your doors security and the package prices to do so.

Standard Aluminum Store Front Door Sets

An aluminum store front door has an aluminum outside frame with glass covering the majority of the inside panel. This is designed for retail spaces, for window shopping and a transparent welcoming attraction. This differs from a traditional solid core wood or metal door and the type of hardware and security needed.

The standard aluminum store front sets are (a) single doors and (b) double or a pair of doors. See pictures below. They can be built with 1 to 5 points of mechanical locking (not including  mag locks or other electronic security). A point of locking is where the active door engages with the door frame. Single doors typically are installed with one point of locking while a pair of doors have two points of locking.

aluminum store front door single edited

 

aluminum store front door pair

Basic Ways to Add Security

There are two basic ways to add mechanical security to aluminum store front doors. The first is by protecting the point(s) of locking with bolt guard and the second is by adding additional points of locking.

Bolt Guard

A bolt guard protects the exposed latch on an outward swinging door. It protects the latch in two ways, one is from a direct attack such as cutting the latch and the other is by spreading the distance of pressure available by the latch up and down on the door away from the latch from a prying attack. Here are two pictures of the bolt guard: one with the door closed and one where you see where the bolt is activated.

aluminum store front latch guardaluminum store front latch guard showing bolt protection

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vertical Rod(s) – Additional Points of Locking

Aluminum store front doors normally come with the swing bolt lock as the initial point of locking. The following additional point(s) of locking can be added:

Single Door

1) Swing Bolt Lock
2) Bottom Vertical Rod (engages into the floor)
3) Top Vertical Rod (engages into the top of the frame)

Total: three points of locking.

Here are pictures of a vertical bottom rod being activated (a top vertical rod is the same except it is on the top of the door and frame:

aluminum store front bottom bolt

Pair of Doors

1) Swing Bolt Lock
2) Bottom Vertical Rod (engages into the floor)
3) Top Vertical Rod (engages into the top of the frame)
4) Opposing Door Top Vertical Rod (engages into the top of the frame)
5) Opposing Door Bottom Surface Mounted Bolt (engages into the floor)

Total: five points of locking.

Here are pictures of the opposing top vertical rod activation and locking point; and the surface mounted bottom bolt.

aluminum store front opposing door vertical rod activation point

 

 

aluminum store front opposing door vertical rod activated

aluminum store front opposing door surface mount bottom bolt

Package Prices

If you are interested in increasing your aluminum store front door security here are the following prices and packages for businesses in the Eugene area.

Single Door(s)

1) Bolt Guard – $78
2) Bolt Guard + Bottom Vertical Rod – $148
3) Bolt Guard + Bottom Vertical Rod + Top Vertical Rod – $228

Pair of Door(s)

The above single door packages plus:

1) Opposing Door Top Vertical Rod – $ 114
2) Opposing Door Top Vertical Rod + Bottom Surface Mounted Bolt – $144

Note these price quotes are valid as of 1/3/15, prices may change. If you are interested in having us install an increase the security of aluminum store front doors call us at 541.632.3968.