Stolen Premium Luxury Vehicles Unlikely to be Recovered: NICB

Compact luxury vehicles had the highest rate of theft at 47 percent, according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau’s latest luxury theft report.

NICB analysts review data contained in the National Crime Information Center’s stolen vehicle file and identify thefts of luxury vehicles as defined in the 2013 market classifications published by Automotive News.

The report focuses only on thefts of 2011, 2012 and 2013 model year vehicles stolen in the United States between January 1, 2010 through December 31, 2013. During this period, there were 5,570 luxury vehicles reported stolen to law enforcement.

Luxury vehicles are further broken down into three categories: Compact, Mid-Sized and Premium. The thefts within those categories were: Compact (2,625), Mid-Sized (2,245) Premium (700).

The report noted the top five states for luxury vehicle thefts as:

1. California (1,390)
2. Florida (863)
3. New Jersey (570)
4. New York (462)
5. Texas (338)

The New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) reported the most luxury vehicle thefts with 957. Next was the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA CBSA with 609. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL CBSA rounds out the top three with 582 thefts.

Of the 5,570 luxury vehicle thefts in this report, 963, or 17 percent, remain unrecovered as of December 31, 2013. Both Compact and Mid-Sized Luxury vehicles—with considerably more thefts—had relatively low unrecovered rates at 15 and 16 percent respectively. In contrast, Premium Luxury vehicles had a much higher unrecovered rate (29 percent) which is indicative of their value in the illicit vehicle market at home and abroad.

Source: NICB