Web site offers way to check car history
Posted on Saturday, July 12, 2008
A new database might protect American consumers by keeping rolling wrecks off the highways.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau is creating a free public database of vehicles declared a loss by insurers, allowing individuals to enter vehicle identification numbers to see if a set of wheels they want to buy has a hidden history.
The crime bureau, an organization of fraud busters funded by 1, 000 of the nation’s insurance companies, began the online service at the end of June at www. nicb. org. Look for a link to the organization’s VINcheck system.
Unlike commercial databases that sell similar information, the crime bureau’s database will have access to the internal records of hundreds of the nation’s largest insurance companies and will be offering the most comprehensive information available, said Frank Scafidi, a spokesman for the organization.
“The best part of this is that it’s free,” he said.
Over the past five years, nearly 12 million vehicles have been totaled by the insurance industry, most of them after collisions, but also after fires and floods.
A percentage of these vehicles — estimates from collision industry experts put it at about 30 percent — are recycled into the used car market.
In the best case, these cars are carefully repaired and their histories are fully disclosed to future buyers. In the worst case, an unlicensed auto body shop performs a few superficial frame adjustments, installs a phony inoperable air bag, sprays on a nice coat of paint and then washes the title in the interstate used car auction market.
The system has long jeopardized not only the buyers of these vehicles with substandard repairs but everybody who shares the road with them. It also has put a cloud over honest body shops, which have a tough time competing against outfits that cut corners.
“Our goal is to provide as much information as possible to consumers at no charge to protect them against fraudulent used car sales and potential accidents from driving unsafe vehicles,” said Robert M. Bryant, crime bureau president.
NICB began offering consumers access to VINs in October 2005 when it publicly posted the identities of about 300, 000 vehicles and boats that had been caught in Hurricane Katrina. Those flooded vehicles were being recycled into the interstate used car market.
Then in November 2007, the group expanded the program to include VINs of unrecovered stolen vehicles. About 1 million vehicles are stolen in the United States every year, and on average only 63 percent are recovered. Buying a hot car isn’t a great idea. If the police ever find it, you will be another victim of the crime, having to give up your car to its rightful owner.
But the totaled vehicle problem is a far bigger issue. About 2. 5 million to 3 million vehicles are totaled every year. Auto manufacturers are making cars more difficult and costly to repair, resulting in more totaled vehicles of even late-model cars. Some luxury cars are being totaled with relatively minor damage because costly aluminum frame systems are exceptionally difficult to repair.
The flip side of this problem is that insurers turn around and sell these cars into the auction market. As a result, some insurance companies have been reluctant to release VINs of their totaled vehicles, worried that it could hurt their recoveries.
So far, about 60 percent of the 1, 000 insurers in the NICB have agreed to provide the crime bureau with the totaled VINs. They include State Farm, Allstate, Nationwide, Progressive, Mercury, Geico and the Auto Club. Scafidi hopes the rest of the industry will quickly join. Although it’s not complete, the NICB database is the most comprehensive that exists, Scafidi said.
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