To Catch a Thief

Review your controls frequently, particularly as your company expands into new locations. The more remote offices you have, the harder it is to closely monitor employee activities.

If your company acquires another firm, move quickly to bring the new company’s internal controls in line with your own. “You can literally be buying someone else’s weaker internal controls,” Meiners says.

Create a company culture that discourages stealing. Make it clear that you will prosecute thieves—your insurance company will likely require that you do so in order to keep coverage. Publicize your code of conduct, and discipline those who violate it. Offer workers an anonymous way to report fraud. “That’s been one of the leading areas to detect fraud—it’s come from a tip rather than from checking the books,” Stackpool says. “Other people may know or have a strong suspicion that some-thing is going on.”

Treat your workers well. “It doesn’t take a lot of money to do that,” Stackpool says. “Maybe Friday is jeans day, or once a month we bring in pizza. If you like what you’re doing and you feel good about it, you’re less likely to steal from your employer.”

The Icing on the Cake

Taking steps to reduce crime can save you money, aggravation, and lost productivity. It can also help lower your insurance rates. “The more an insurance carrier sees someone trying to reduce loss, the more preferential pricing you’re going to get,” TrueNorth’s Suter says.

That preferential pricing might translate to a savings of 3 to 15 percent, Salmans says, though that number will vary by company and insurer. The savings, he adds, may be much greater than the money you spend on crime prevention. “The return on investment could be ten times greater than the money you spend,” Salmans says.

For many companies, crime prevention means cheaper insurance. For others, though, crime prevention may be a necessary part of getting insurance at all, or of getting it at a price the company can afford to pay. If your business is considered high risk—a jewelry shop, for example—or you’ve had claims in the past, you may need crime control measures to keep your existing policy or attract a new underwriter. “If you don’t do the necessary things to protect yourself from crime, you will have fewer companies willing to insure your business,” Crowther says.

“If you don’t pass the underwriting standards, an insurer may say ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’” Stackpool agrees. And if you are offered coverage, he says, “in general you will pay less if you operate in a controlled, prudent manner. You’ll pay less than someone without the controls, and you’ll get a lower deductible if you have a good history.”