Release: Immediate

Contact:
Giuseppe Barone
MWW Group (for ISO)
(201) 507-9500
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Erica Helton
MWW Group (for ISO)
(201) 507-9500
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Frank Scafidi
NICB
(916) 979-1510
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ISO and NICB Release 2010 Heavy-Equipment Theft Report

JERSEY CITY, N.J., and DES PLAINES, Ill., July 21, 2011 — The National Equipment Register (NER), a division of ISO Crime Analytics, and the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) today released their national report on 2010 heavy-equipment theft. This year’s report continues to focus on what types of equipment are most likely to be stolen and recovered and where in the country thefts and recoveries occur. The report’s objective is to help provide equipment owners, insurance companies, and law enforcement personnel with information that can be used to help allocate investigative resources and influence theft prevention efforts.

The report draws on data from the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), the NICB, and NER to provide a comprehensive analysis of heavy-equipment theft during the year. In 2010, the NCIC received 13,374 theft reports. In descending order, the five states with the most incidents of heavy-equipment theft were Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina. Together, those five states accounted for 43 percent of total equipment theft. Rounding out the top ten were California, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Ohio. The top ten states accounted for 61 percent of all thefts.

In 2010, 19 percent of heavy equipment stolen was recovered.

“Recovering stolen equipment and identifying the rightful owners remains a challenge,” said Joe Wehrle, NICB president and CEO. “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.”

“It’s encouraging to see that the overall theft percentage has not increased in the last few years,” stated David Shillingford, president of ISO Crime Analytics. “However, there’s still room for considerable improvement from all parties involved because the disruption and secondary effects for equipment owners, insurers, and law enforcement are still significant.”

About the National Insurance Crime Bureau
Headquartered in Des Plaines, Ill., the NICB is the nation’s leading not-for-profit organization exclusively dedicated to preventing, detecting and defeating insurance fraud and vehicle theft through data analytics, investigations, training, legislative advocacy and public awareness. The NICB is supported by nearly 1,100 property/casualty insurance companies and self-insured organizations. NICB member companies wrote about $320 billion in insurance premiums in 2010, or approximately 80 percent of the nation’s property/casualty insurance. That includes 94 percent ($152 billion) of the nation’s personal auto insurance. To learn more visit www.nicb.org.

About the National Equipment Register
The National Equipment Register (NER), a division of Verisk’s ISO Crime Analytics unit, helps equipment owners manage equipment risks. Since 2001, NER has helped thousands of equipment owners and their insurers deter theft and has enabled law enforcement to recover millions of dollars of stolen equipment through HELPtech®, a national equipment marking and registration program. In 2009, NER launched IRONcheck®, a machine-history search for used-equipment buyers. NER’s data management skills and equipment expertise are also used by fleets to support compliance with new regulations. For more information, contact NER at 201-469-2030 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . You can visit the NER website at www.NER.net.

About ISO
Since 1971, ISO has been a leading source of information about property/casualty insurance risk. For a broad spectrum of commercial and personal lines of insurance, the company provides statistical, actuarial, underwriting, and claims information; policy language; information about specific locations; fraud-identification tools; and technical services. ISO serves insurers, reinsurers, agents and brokers, insurance regulators, risk managers, and other participants in the property/casualty insurance marketplace. ISO is a member of the Verisk Insurance Solutions group at Verisk Analytics. For more information, visit www.iso.com and www.verisk.com.