We camped at Ayson's Reserve near Elmore in central Victoria over the
easter break. It was a great place with many people camped there. It was very relaxing and on
Easter Sunday we went into
Bendigo to watch the
Easter parade with our children and grand children.
We were a bit worried about leaving all our gear at the
camp so we put a hitch lock and tyre clamp on our caravan and took our generator with us in the back of the ute.
Went back to the
camp that night for our final night out. We set the generator up again and chained it to the bull bar of the ute. We shut the generator down at about 10.30pm and went to bed.
When we got up in the morning we noticed that our generator was gone, the chain had been cut during the night and the generator stolen.
We walked around the reserve talking to people to see if anyone had noticed anyone hanging around that shouldn't have been there, no one had but we found someone else who had had their generator stolen.
Both were Honda 2KVA inverter generators (our is Model EU20i, Serial No EAAJ-2041611 2273947) and both chained up.
There were many other items in the reserve not locked up such as push bikes, outboard motors, solar panals etc that were not touched.
We notified the
police who said that we had very little chace of ever seeing it again.
This week we have tried to claim the theft on our insurances:
CIL caravan insurance advised that they only cover item stolen from within the caravan where forced entry can be proven.
CGU house and contents insurance would not cover it.
CGU motor vehicle insurance would only cover items to a value of $500 but as our excess is $500 would not accept the claim.
We were advised by CGU motor vehicle insurance that in future we could nominate valuable camping equipment on our insurance policy and they would be covered.
This has left us very disolusioned with insurance companies and the parasites that stole our generator (replacement value about $2,000).
Lesson learnt, properly sercure your valuable items to try to protect your self from these parasites and
check what you are covered for with your insurance.