Tool theft: what to do in the first 24 hours
Half of UK tradespeople have had tools stolen. Almost none get them back. A survey of 645 trades carried out in March 2026 put it at 51% who have been hit and 94% who never see their tools again. The average insurance claim last year was £2,646, and across self-employed trades the bill came to roughly £99 million.
The gap between those two numbers is not really about policing. It is about evidence. When a van gets emptied at two in the morning the tools go straight into a resale chain that moves fast, and the only thing standing between a stolen drill and a completely untraceable one is a serial number somebody wrote down beforehand.
Here is what to do, in order, on the day it happens.
1. Report it and get a crime reference number
Do this first. You need the crime reference for your insurer, and you need the theft logged so that if your tools surface at a raid or a traffic stop there is something for officers to match against. Close to a quarter of tool thefts are never reported at all, which is a large part of why recovery rates look the way they do.
2. Give them serial numbers, not descriptions
“A yellow cordless drill” identifies nothing. A serial number identifies one specific tool and ties it to you. If you have photographs showing the tool and its serial plate, send those too. This is the single thing that decides whether a recovered tool finds its way back to you or sits in a property store until it is disposed of.
3. Tell your insurer the same day
Most policies have a reporting window and nearly all of them want the crime reference. Have your receipts or purchase records to hand. Average claim values have climbed sharply since 2020, so claim time is an expensive moment to discover your tool list was out of date.
4. Check the resale sites within 48 hours
Stolen tools show up on marketplace listings and at car boot sales quickly. If you spot yours, do not go and collect them yourself. Send the listing to the officer handling your crime reference and let them deal with it.
5. Sort the van before you replace anything
Whole-van theft has fallen a long way, but forced-panel attacks have risen to fill the gap, and damage to the vehicle is now the most common way tools go missing. Deadlocks, an alarm and the habit of emptying the van overnight are worth more than any single clever lock.
The part that has to happen before the theft
Every step above depends on records you made earlier. Photographs, serial numbers, receipts. Most trades mean to do it and never get round to it, because it feels like paperwork on a Sunday night when the job is already done.
That is why the InAJam Tool Vault is free and takes about two minutes per tool. Photograph it, log the serial number, add the receipt if you still have it. If the worst happens it produces a police-format report in one click with everything an officer needs to match your tools to you when they turn up.
It will not stop your van being broken into. It changes what happens next.