The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) set up a free, public database that will allow consumers to find out if a vehicle has been declared a total loss by an insurance company. The database is available at the NICB Web site (www.nicb.org).

NICB offers the total loss information via its online VINCheck service. By providing total loss information to consumers, NICB hopes to help identify vehicles that have been refurbished and reintroduced into the market, sometimes with new, fraudulently obtained titles and no mention of their prior history. Consumers have traditionally not had access to background information on these vehicles unless they subscribed to a commercial service.

“In a perfect world, everybody plays by the rules and consumers are given a complete history of the vehicle,” says Frank Scafidi, director of public affairs for NICB. “But there is a small segment of the salvage market that doesn’t play by the rules. There’s nothing wrong with buying a total-loss or flood-damaged vehicle. There are a lot of parts in those cars that are still good. We want to protect consumers and make sure legitimate wholesalers aren’t getting tarred by the unethical people in the industry.”

The NICB is a not-for-profit organization and is funded by approximately 1,000 insurance companies. It was created by the merger of the National Automobile Theft Bureau and the Insurance Crime Prevention Institute in 1992 to prevent insurance fraud and vehicle theft.

NICB began offering VIN look-up services in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina to help identify flood-damaged cars and boats. In November 2007, the group expanded that database to include unrecovered stolen vehicles.

The expanded system is not comprehensive, and will include only information from participating NICB member companies. The database itself is managed by the Insurance Services Office (www.iso.com), with VINCheck serving as a portal to that system.

Consumers can run up to five VIN queries per day. The database will tell them if the vehicle has been declared a total loss, but will not provide complete details.

NICB limited the number of queries that can be run per day so that the service would not be used to undercut commercial VIN lookup services. “This is primarily for the consumer,” Scafidi says. “That’s why we put a limit on it. We’re not trying to rain on anybody’s parade in the commercial sector.”

In 2006 and 2007, legislation was introduced in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives to address the issue of retitling total-loss vehicles. Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) re-introduced the Consumer Access to Total Loss Vehicle Data Act (S.545) early in 2007 in response to issues that came up after Hurricane Katrina. The bill called for insurance companies to provide total-loss vehicle data to consumers. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) introduced similar legislation in the House that called for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to require disclosure of all information pertaining to the fair market value and safety of damaged vehicles.

Totaled, flooded or stolen vehicles would be permanently red-flagged, and insurance companies would be required to reveal the date and reason of the total loss, the odometer reading on that date, and whether the airbag had deployed. The bills were supported by the National Automotive Dealers Association, the Automotive Recyclers Association (ARA), the Society of Collision Repair Specialists (SCRS) and other industry groups. So far, neither bill has emerged from committee.

At the time the bills were originally introduced, insurance groups announced they were working on alternative legislation that wouldn’t require the industry to set up a new data collection and dissemination system.

According to Scafidi, if federal legislation is eventually passed, systems like the VINCheck could provide a platform to help implement those requirements.

“It’s not difficult to build something to accomplish what that legislation is trying to accomplish,” Scafidi says. “There are a lot of things going on right now to get this data from the insurers, and they are anxious to get it done. There’s an impression that the insurance industry has resisted this, but the fact that they’ve allowed us to expand VINCheck in this way is an indication that they can’t wait for someone to get this information into the proper hands.”

Another initiative already underway is the National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS), a federal program that was supposed to link state motor vehicle agencies into one comprehensive database. Although the idea for the NMVTIS originated more than a decade ago, it’s only now getting any real traction and funding. If successfully deployed, the system could prevent state-to-state title washing, among other things.

Currently, 25 states are participating, with an additional nine states planning to join. By the end of the year, NMVTIS should include information on 75 percent of the U.S. vehicle population. The data is available to state titling agencies to help prevent interstate title washing.

Currently, well over half of the insurance companies involved in the NICB have agreed to submit totaled VIN data, including the majority of the large national insurers like Nationwide, Progressive, Geico, State Farm and Allstate, and Scafidi said efforts are underway to further increase participation with the smaller insurers.

“This is entirely voluntary,” Scafidi says. “We’re not doing any arm-twisting. Some of the smaller carriers don’t even know what’s going on yet. We remind the carriers periodically to send us a response, and each time we do that a few more sign on.

“This is a great leap in the right direction and the best thing that’s out there for the price,” he says. “We’re hopeful that between all of the legislative interest in recent years, the activity around NMVTIS, and the willingness of the insurance companies to participate, that we’ll see more of this information available.”