Case Study: Equipment

Group expects recovery of stolen heavy-equipment to improve

The National Equipment Register (NER) and the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) tracked heavy-equipment theft during 2010 and identified the top five states where the thefts occurred. Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and South Carolina accounted for 43 percent of total equipment theft last year. Rounding out the top 10 were California, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama and Ohio. The top 10 states accounted for 61 percent of all thefts.

The most common type of equipment stolen is mowers (riding or garden tractor) at 47 percent; loaders at 18 percent and tractors (wheeled or tracked) at 13 percent. The types of loaders most frequently stolen are: Skid steers, 63 percent; backhoes 30 percent and wheel loaders 7 percent.

Two key factors determine the type of equipment that thieves are most likely to steal: value and mobility. Value is the primary factor, except for items too large to move on a small trailer. For instance, large bulldozers are valuable but seldom stolen, as they are difficult to move.

How do you protect your equipment or improve your chances of recovering it?

"Recovering stolen equipment and identifying the rightful owners remains a challenge," said Joe Wehrle, NICB president. "Improved equipment registration, theft reporting and law enforcement training have shown encouraging signs of success, and we're confident the numbers will continue to improve."

In 2010, some 19 percent of heavy equipment stolen was recovered, according to NICB. Several factors contribute to the low recovery rate of stolen equipment, including: Delays in discovery and reporting theft; inaccurate or nonexistent owner records; lack of prepurchase screening of used equipment; and limited law enforcement resources dedicated to equipment investigations.

To help improve recovery rates, equipment owners should keep accurate lists of equipment with PIN/serial numbers and submit them to law enforcement, their insurers, and NER as soon they discover a theft. When companies purchase equipment, they should register serial numbers in the NER database, so the information is available to law enforcement 24 hours a day.
 

Recovery efforts
This fall, Verisk Analytics launched IRONwatch, an electronic GPS tracking device that helps locate and recover stolen equipment. The device was developed by NER, a member of the Verisk companies.

IRONwatch users do not incur a monthly fee because of its "sleeping SIM" capability.