Theft registration
Stolen equipment registration
TER has Europe’s most accurate and comprehensive database of stolen plant and equipment. More than £300M of stolen equipment has been registered with TER by the police, owners, users, insurers and banks. To enhance the opportunities of recovering the equipment, and to cut out the circulation of stolen plant and equipment it is vital that any party suffering a theft, or loss, reports that loss to TER at the earliest opportunity.
Here is some information about TER Theft Registration.
What is TER Theft Registration?
Tell TER the identification details of any stolen plant and equipment valued at more than £1,500, along with the owner and, if relevant, hirer details, with the police crime details, and which insurance company is on cover and their claims reference number. The data can be registered using a paper Theft Registration Form which can be faxed or posted to TER, or via the TER website.
Then what happens?
TER will log the theft on the TER database. If the theft is a higher value on (excess of £15-20,000) and it has been reported to TER within 24 hrs of theft, TER will circulate its details to all police forces and ports.
Who registers stolen data with TER?
Owners and users of equipment. Police officers taking details of the crime. Insurance brokers, insurance company claims departments and their loss adjusters. The Motor Insurer’s Anti Fraud and Theft Register (MIAFTR). The Police National Computer (PNC).
What does TER do with the data? First we check it to make sure that the equipment identification details are accurate. If they are not, we go back to the supplier and find out the right data or additional data, such as a Crime Reference Number. With the bulk data that we get from the PNC and MIAFTR we have to cleanse the data before entering it into our database. In an average month we cleanse around 200 higher value police equipment theft records from the PNC. On average we have to discard 30-40% of the data as we cannot correct it because the data on the PNC is simply wrong. Typically, 75% of the rest of the data requires some sort of amendment which can vary from the misspelling of a name or incorrect model data through to mis-entry of partially correct data. What this means is that more than 60% of the data on the PNC Plant File will never give a police officer the result that he should get when he is standing in front of a stolen machine, and that is why they use TER’s free services.
Why register thefts?
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It enhances your opportunities of recovering the stolen item by making the data available to the police 24/7. However, recovery rates are still very low principally because equipment theft is not a police priority. Less than 5% of stolen equipment is ever recovered.
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Registering theft data also allows TER to spot frauds, e.g. where a company has made an insurance claim for a theft and then sold the item.
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And, it provides data against which potential purchasers, insurers and auctions can check before they buy, insure or sell equipment which hinders the criminal’s ability to dispose of stolen equipment.
How much data is registered?
A total of more than 100,000 equipment thefts are registered. Over 48,000 thefts have been reported by insurers, with the balance being PNC data from the police. We assess that at any one time there is around £200M of stolen equipment on TER’s database.
