Car thieves are upgrading. After the Suzuki Jimny became a target in a wave of large car thefts, they upgraded to the Jeep Wrangler, another highly valued and relatively common off-road vehicle.
The police refuse to provide data on the extent of thefts, but many Wrangler owners report difficulties in finding an insurance company that will sell them comprehensive insurance. R., a Wrangler owner from Tel Aviv, told Walla Cars that for the past few weeks, as his policy is about to end, he is struggling to find coverage. "They want nearly NIS 18,000 from me, whereas a year ago I paid NIS 8,000, with no additional claims and the car is a year older and worth less."
J., a resident of Sharon, who also had no claims in the last three years, said, "For half a year, I drove without comprehensive insurance because they demanded NIS 20,000 from me per year. In the end, I found an agent who managed to get me insurance for NIS 10,000."
In the insurance sector, it is confirmed that some companies have completely stopped offering comprehensive insurance for Wranglers, claiming it is a loss-making activity. Those that remain in the field have increased policy prices by 100% within a year, while on average policy prices increased by about 35% in the last year.
An attempt to receive insurance quotes from Wobi and several insurance company sales websites for a two-year-old Wrangler, owned by a 40-year-old resident of Tel Aviv with no previous claims, a preferred customer among insurance companies, all cases were met with a rare response - the company currently has nothing to offer.
The good off-road capabilities of the Wrangler have made it the standard off-road vehicle of the IDF, which has acquired many vehicles of this model for officers with the rank of Major and Lieutenant Colonel, and for infantry units, as a replacement for the Israeli-made Storm Jeeps whose production has been discontinued.
One of the dangers is that terror elements will use stolen cars to carry out attacks while pretending to be military vehicles, after repainting and modifications, in areas from which most tools are stolen. Additional tools are stolen by the Bedouin sector and used for escapes.
In Symalat, a Jeep importer, it is said that the company is aware of the situation and has developed a technological solution to improve the vehicle's theft resistance, offered to anyone who purchased one of the Jeep models imported by it, covering most tools, but not the Plug-In models, for example. According to her claims, in vehicles where the solution is implemented, there has been a dramatic decrease in theft rates, so she estimates that car insurance premiums will soon decrease.