Agencies Team Up to Combat Equipment Theft

February 21, 2008 • The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) and ISO, a leading source of information about risk, recently announced a strategic alliance to significantly increase the insurance industry's impact on equipment theft. Through the alliance, the databases of National Equipment Register (NER), New York, N.Y., a member of the ISO family of companies, will be made more widely available to law enforcement through NICB's network of agents working with law enforcement agencies throughout the country.

Since 2001, ISO, Jersey City, N.J., has been helping NER develop databases of construction and farm equipment losses and ownership records to help law enforcement identify stolen machines. Equipment owners register equipment details through NER's HELPtech® service, receiving theft deterrence decals and often preferred insurance pricing. NER's IronCheck service helps protect those buying used equipment.

 

“NICB has made tremendous progress in developing a program to help law enforcement and our member insurance companies recover more construction and farm equipment,” said Robert Bryant, president and CEO of NICB. “The ability to access NER's data will enable NICB to achieve even greater success in identifying and recovering stolen and/or cloned heavy equipment.”

 

“Because NER is an ISO business, we are able to incorporate NER's databases into the highly successful data-sharing alliance we have with NICB,” said Vincent Cialdella, senior vice president of ISO. “This will significantly increase the number of law enforcement officers and NICB agents with access to valuable data that will lead to more recoveries, more arrests, and fewer equipment thefts — and that's good for our insurance clients.”