Industry Expertise

Insurers are doing more than ever before to protect their customers. Équité Association joins in that mission by working to detect and prevent insurance crime, making our communities safer. Équité’s hard work in the fight against insurance crime is shaping our 2023 accomplishments, which include investing in innovative technology and expertise, continuing to act as subject matter experts in partnership with law enforcement agencies across the country, and raising public awareness to protect Canadians.

Bryan Gast, VP, Investigative Services at Équité Association shares more about after market immobilizers, how they work and how using a layered approach is the best way to protect a vehicle from being stolen.‍

Équité Association (Équité) was founded in April 2021, to help protect Canadians and contribute to a more equitable world by tackling insurance crime. As a national not-for-profit organization, Équité Association supports Canadians to fight fraud by using advanced analytics, intelligence best practices, and coordinated investigations.

Fraud Prevention Month is an opportunity for Canadians to learn more about the alarming rise in insurance crime in Canada, particularly auto theft. Équité Association works with our members to protect Canadians from insurance crime. Whether stolen vehicles or staged accidents, there is always a victim, and this type of crime can have devastating financial, physical, and emotional consequences.

Last year, Équité Association investigators and partners recovered over 1,170 vehicles at the Port of Montreal valued at $63M, breaking the previous year’s record of most recovered vehicles.

According to Bryan Gast, Vice President of Investigative Services at Équité Association, a significant surge in catalytic converter thefts in Canada and across borders is due to the precious metals contained in catalytic converters. “Thieves are more interested in the precious metals within the catalytic converter than they are in the part itself. The value of palladium, rhodium, and platinum, all contained in a catalytic converter, continues to surpass the value of gold,” says Gast.

Eradicating insurance fraud is a journey and, in April of 2021, the industry took a monumental step forward by establishing Équité Association: a single, unified, industry-wide organization focused on preventing and detecting insurance fraud. Stepping beyond their role as competitors in the marketplace, the industry is collaborating in an unprecedented way to help create safer communities for all Canadians.

If you, like many other Canadians, own an F150 pickup truck, you have likely heard some sobering statistics on how popular this vehicle series is among thieves. Each year, this vehicle appears on Équité Association’s annual Top 10 Most Stolen Vehicles List, along with the Honda CR-V, Lexus RX series and other cars that span affordable and luxury categories.

Équité plays a role in these task forces by sharing as much information and intelligence as possible on behalf of the insurance industry. Équité is a member-funded organization: its member insurers are directly invested in protecting their good customers from bad actors and in finding a solution to insurance crime and fraud in Canada.

Here at Équité Association, our Fraud Analytics Solutions & Technology (FAST) team has been working hard to develop and implement our analytics platform, the first of its kind in Canada. As we inch closer to this milestone achievement, I have been thinking about the increasing importance of data integrity and the role of cyber security both for our organization and for our members.