Copper thieves have fueled an explosion of claims for insurers of vacant and idle properties, but increased loss potential has not deterred competition in either the residential or commercial vacant-property insurance markets, two special-risk experts say.

During a webinar titled “The New Edifice of Vacant Property: Protecting Asset Value as Commercial Real Estate Slowly Recovers” presented by PropertyCasualty360.com, Jeff Shearman, senior risk-engineering consultant for Zurich Services Corp., reports that Zurich saw “a big spike in copper claims when the price of scrap copper went over $3 per pound.”

Referring to thieves as “people who mine resources” in unoccupied buildings, Shearman describes a case in his town—“a low-crime area”—involving someone who climbed up to the roof of a strip mall to remove air-conditioning units of vacant tenant spaces in order to get the copper out of them.