Auto manufacturers need to do more to help tackle the auto theft crisis in Canada by making vehicles harder to steal, a speaker said Friday at Reuters’ Future of Insurance Canada 2024 event in Toronto.
A good place to start is the federal vehicle standards, which have not been updated since 2007, says Elliott Silverstein, director of government relations with CAA Club Group.
“We have a lot more in our cars, but the standards haven’t kept track,” he says during a panel discussion. “So, without the standard being updated, the manufacturers aren’t compelled to really do much.”
Speakers say collaboration between auto manufacturers, insurers, tech providers, government agencies, and others is crucial to curbing auto theft in Canada.
“The manufacturers need to own their part of this conversation, because the cars should not be easy to be stolen,” Silverstein says. “I think it’s about understanding and identifying that we have a problem.
“We all play a role in the solution,” he says. “But if you keep passing the onus on to others saying, ‘Well, it’s an insurance issue, it’s a consumer issue, it’s a policing issue, it’s an organized crime issue,’ we all have to take a bit of that pie and say, ‘We all own it.’ Until the manufacturers take a piece of the pie, we’re going to keep taking over and over again.”
Some manufacturers have evolved
But some manufacturers, such as Porsche and Mercedes, have evolved their processes over the years, says Freddy Marcantonio, vice president of business development and distribution with Tag Tracking.
“Their running codes, which are key fobs, are much more intricate and encrypted than the other manufacturers’,” he says.
Ironically, it was technology that led to the current auto theft crisis when mandatory key fobs were introduced in the 2000s to combat rising auto theft, says Michelle Dodokin, head of auto insurance supervision at the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario.
“The thieves figured out a way to capture the signal in the key fob and were able to replicate the key fob,” she says. “So, it’s not that the key fob solution wasn’t a good one; it’s that it didn’t change over time, and there was only one solution.
“And so it was easy for them to figure out how to overcome that. We can’t just set it and forget it.”
This is why technology needs to stay top of mind in the future, Dodokin says.
“And I think that the auto manufacturers are starting to dial into this more,” she says. “I think they would really benefit from some collaboration with the industry and some sharing of data so that they understand more about which vehicles can be stolen and which of their technology enhancements are actually making a difference…”
Collaboration is key
The need for collaboration between all stakeholders was a key theme during the panel discussion.
“It takes all of us working together, and it’s really about sharing data and information that’s really key to us working together,” says Jamie Lee, head of fraud and financial crime with Aviva Canada. “If we all work in silos, then actually we’re only tackling a part of the problem.
“Coming together and sharing that data and getting that industry and nationwide view is really, really important for us to stay ahead of the trends.”
When it comes to tackling auto theft, Dodokin says the industry is stronger together.
“What we’ve observed as a regulator, and in my time in the industry before I joined the regulator, is that a lot of insurers have data and insights in terms of what’s happening within their own book of business, but not all of those insights are necessarily being shared with the industry,” she says.
“I think in a situation like this when you have an extreme crisis and the industry needs to respond, that’s an opportunity to really come together, share some of that data, share the experience about what is happening within their own business and share those similarities and emerging trends…”
National auto theft trends showed a 17% decrease in the first half of 2024 compared to the prior year, according to Équité Association.
However, auto theft insurance claims in 2023 hit a record $1.5 billion, up from about $1.2 billion in 2022 — also a record at the time.
Feature image by iStock.com/RainerPlendl
