It’s the situation no rental owner wants to be in: filling out a police report and looking at future lost rentals because a valued piece of equipment has been stolen from the store or job site.

You can, however, take steps now to protect your equipment. Besides implementing common-sense measures at your rental operation, you can take advantage of the American Rental Association (ARA)-National Equipment Register (NER) HELPtech theft-prevention service.

This service allows you, as an ARA member, to register up to 1,000 pieces of your mobile, off-road equipment on this national database for free — a service that would cost you more than $3,500 if you did it on your own. Thanks to membership in ARA, there is no cost to you.

When you register your equipment, you:

• Receive free NER HELPtech stickers to adhere to your equipment, an action that informs everyone that your machines have been registered.
• Can attend heavy-equipment theft summits for free. These summits are held around the country and provide a venue for rental operators and law enforcement in a particular area to meet and discuss ways to combat theft.
• Will have your deductible, up to $10,000 for theft or conversion of equipment registered, waived if you are covered by ARA Insurance.
• Will have all of your equipment information on the NER HELPtech database. So, if your equipment is stolen, you immediately call the police, your insurance agent and then NER at 866-663-7872 with all of the pertinent information. This information is then logged into the NER database. NER sends regular theft alerts and theft trend alerts to local law enforcement, and equipment and rental equipment owners. That act of registering your equipment allows law enforcement personnel to have full access to your ownership information. This allows police to identify you as the true owner and return that equipment to you once it is recovered.

To register each piece of equipment, make sure you have:

• Your company name, address and email address.
• Year of the equipment.
• Manufacturer.
• Model number.
• Equipment type/description.
• PIN/serial number.
• Owner-applied number.

To register your equipment, contact Stacy Kaufmann with the National Equipment Register at 561-843-3753 or skaufman@nerusa.com.

Registering your equipment is a “theft-prevention and equipment-recovery step,” says Alysia Ryan, ARA's director of state government affairs. “It’s the proactive move to take. First, you receive tools that let thieves know your equipment is registered. Then, if your equipment is stolen, you know that law enforcement officers have access to that database 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is a great tool that can help expedite recovery. Plus, NER sends out theft alerts that let rental operators and law enforcement personnel know when a theft has occurred.”

For more information, go to ARA's website at ARArental.org or call 800-334-2177, ext. 271, to contact Alysia Ryan.