Hi, welcome to today's webinar, Leveraging Information and Technology for Equipment Lost Control and Recovery, hosted by Inland Marine Underwriters Association. I'm Lillian Coulson, and I thank you for joining us today. We have over 155 attendees registered today, and we look forward to an informative, interactive session. I'd like to acknowledge IMUA's Lost Control and Claims Committee for putting forward this webinar topic and bringing it to fruition. Many thanks to our esteemed presenters, whom I'll introduce shortly, as well as to Eileen and Ali Monreale for working closely with our presenters to guide the planning of this webinar. Just a few technical tips before we begin the webinar. You'll find your attendee control panel on your screen, and it may minimize by default. At any point, you can right-click on the orange arrow to bring it back. Also, you can select view on your control panel and uncheck the auto-hide option. To download a PDF of the presentation, please go to your control panel and then go to the handouts tab and click on that, and then you can download the file. You'll also find the question box on your control panel. We'll take your questions at the end of the webinar, and our presenters look forward to your participation both in the Q&A and the polls today. To encourage your questions and to add a little fun competition, IMUA will email a $25 Amazon gift card to the best question or most engaged. So, let's get started. Please be aware of the IMUA policy statement. I'm honored to introduce today's presenters. First, Shane Kula is an insurance executive with 15 years of underwriting experience and inland marine. He's currently an executive and underwriter with AXA XL handling the Northeast region. He started his insurance career with the Hanover in Houston before relocating to New York City in 2012 to accept a position with Alliant. Prior to joining the insurance industry, Shane held positions for Packard Corporation, leasing Peterbilt trucks for the Florida and North Carolina territories. Shane holds a marketing degree from Florida State University. Welcome Shane. Next we have Michael St. Hill, Vice President of Client Engagement at National Equipment Register, also known as NER. Michael is an insurance professional with over 20 years of experience on both the carrier and broker side of the business. Spearheading NER's IronWatch GPS product and leveraging NER's data sets, Michael is responsible for providing one-of-a-kind comprehensive theft recovery solutions to the construction industry. He spent the last 15 years at NER educating the insurance, construction, and agriculture industries on theft prevention and recovery and analytics. Greg Kaber has been the President and CEO of Babico Alarm Systems Incorporated since 1999, when he acquired Babico from the founders who started the company in 1930. Since Greg acquired Babico, it has become a leader in providing transportation security, earning the status as the most trusted name in cargo security. Under Greg's leadership, the Babico asset and cargo security solutions have grown to include numerous proprietary and patented products with more on the roadmap. Greg and his team at Babico continue to monitor the ongoing challenges in asset and cargo theft techniques and to develop innovative technological creations to deter theft and share those learnings with the industries they serve. Now I'll turn the floor over to Shane to kick off the webinar. Welcome Shane. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks, Elaine, for the introduction. I'm sure you're all super excited about learning about equipment theft. You probably even put your Do Not Disturb sign on your office door, or shut your phone off so you could really be born with this presentation, or most likely you're going to ask yourself, when is this going to be over? But whatever the case, I think Michael, Gary, and I have put together some very informative information that you'll find useful to you and your insurers. I'll be kicking off this presentation, and I'll be followed by Michael St. Hill from NPR, who will discuss information technology, and then Greg Haber from Babico, who will discuss theft prevention and security. We will then wrap this up with Q&A. So contracted equipment theft. It's a booming business. It's estimated that the value of construction equipment theft in the United States is over $1 billion annually. We will look at the simplicity in which equipment is stolen and what can be done to mitigate these losses. In today's world, there are many factors that impact equipment theft, including high construction activity, high demand, and supply chain shortages. We'll examine construction sites, loss control, theft-determined devices, and underwriting measures. Unfortunately, even with taking proactive measures to prevent equipment theft, as we'll focus on in this presentation, it's nearly impossible to guarantee theft will not occur. So there are many different types of contractors we insure at Inland Marine, such as industrial, habitational, civil, street, and road, and others, and many of these contractors have similar exposures. So why is one contractor more susceptible to theft than another? Are the exposures different from one another? The exposures are different, but also very similar. They all do have one thing in common, and that's equipment. Construction sites are the number one place for equipment theft. So if we look at road construction, I'm sure you've all been on a highway during construction and you've witnessed a street and road contractor. You'll often see equipment sitting on the side of the road, such as bulldozers, loaders, backroads, bobcats. This is really easy pickings for theft, and many of these street and road contractors must transport this equipment many miles from their storage facilities. So transporting equipment back and forth really isn't feasible. This equipment could literally be on site for weeks, and as I'm sure you've seen on these construction sites, there's no concrete barriers or fencing to prevent entry to this equipment. And to make matters worse, many of these pieces of equipment can be stored with the same key. So for example, if you had a Caterpillar piece of equipment, you can drive up with a trailer, insert your own Caterpillar key into one of these backroads or loaders, load this on a trailer, and away you go. So if we look at four-wall construction sites, such as habitational, industrial, building and construction, we simply have more site security, such as fencing around the site, concrete barriers, and lighting. Also ingress and egress into the site can be a bit more monitored with the addition of security guards, motion detection devices, and closed-circuit cameras. However, these sites also have a lot more contractors coming and going, which does open up the opportunity for theft. A lot of times within the site gates, you'll typically have storage areas for equipment which can add to the site's security. Next, if we look at civil construction, civil contractors are involved in many engineering projects that are large in scale and involve public infrastructure, including natural and man-made structures, including roadways, bridges, airports, respire treatment plants, et cetera. So civil contractors, while also having smaller equipment, they generally have heavier pieces of equipment, such as trains, that would be used to lift bridges and roadways and tracks, et cetera. So these pieces of equipment are not easily moved by one person, so they involve many personnel to load and unload. So theft is a lot less likely to happen with one individual driving up with a truck or trailer. And these sites are generally not that visible to the public, as many of the engineering projects are more in rural areas. So the visibility of this equipment is much less. This is very sensitive. There we go. Okay, to loss control. We run into an account that has experienced a consistent trend of theft losses. We'll send out a loss control personnel to perform an evaluation of the operational and procedural aspects of the company. The first item is to identify the problem. So what's the source of the problem? Where are most of these losses occurring? Are these at the construction site or at the storage facility? Construction sites and storage facilities are the most common for equipment theft. Next, we look at what types of equipment are being stolen, so mowers, loaders, tractors, forklifts, excavators. These are the most common pieces of equipment that are stolen. And also anything that's kept on a trailer, like a generator, a compressor, building material, any item that makes it easy for someone to come by and hook up their truck to a trailer and drive off. These are the most susceptible items to be stolen. We'd also look at when theft is occurring. So construction equipment theft is most common on weekends and holidays, and job sites that aren't actively staffed suffer the most losses. And equipment is more likely to be stolen during warm weather months. May is the highest theft month, while in the colder weather states, January is the peak theft month, and that's due to the equipment being idle. Then we would next look at operational procedures. So how is their equipment being monitored? How is their inventory being monitored? Are systems in place to track the equipment when it has returned to the facility? And have employees been properly trained on how to correctly store and lock the equipment? And lastly, we would look at theft-deterrent devices. Has the insurer installed any type of theft-deterrent devices, such as vehicle mobilizers or GPS telematics devices? If theft is happening at their storage facility, have they looked at installing security cameras or motion detection and alarm systems, and fencing and lighting? So, there are multiple theft deterrent devices available on the market, so we'll start with the RFIDs, or Radio Frequency Identification. So these use electromagnetic fields to automatically identify and track tags that are attached to the equipment. The limitation of these devices is they need to be triggered by an electromagnetic reader, and a perfect example of one of these devices is your toll tag in your car. When you drive through a toll, your device is read by an electromagnetic reader, and that, in turn, reads the RFID in your car, and that's how you pay your toll. These devices are often used by equipment dealers to track their inventory on site, but are limited on a broader scale basis. So if you look at the pictures I have there, so this is for painting and labeling. So I just want to state that we have no affiliation with these companies, they're just strictly for illustration purposes. But so painting and labeling can be expensive, especially if you were going to try to paint the whole piece of equipment when you first bought it. So if you ordered the equipment new from the factory, you can spec out the colors and have it branded, which would make it much more cost-efficient right from the factory. And although there isn't any kind of mechanical or electrical theft deterrent involved in painting and labeling, these typically go after the easiest, most average-looking piece of equipment, not a piece of equipment that is painted and decal with the general contractor's name on it. So next, if we look at vehicle immobilizers, these are another great way of securing equipment. These would include installing fuel cutoff switches, hydraulic bypasses, and track locks. And most of these immobilizers activate once the engine is turned off and operated via GPS and mobile phone devices. And one of the more common immobilizers is an engine immobilizer. So once activated, the equipment cannot be started without a unique pin or key, in addition to the ignition key. But these are great for equipment on construction sites, especially where there are no real physical barriers to protect the equipment. So if we look at GPS, this is a device, I think, which everyone has heard of in some sort of form. I mean, I originally heard of GPS back in the late 90s, sorry, I'm going to date myself here, but that's when my dad bought his Park Avenue and had this system called OnStar. And this was a system that was introduced on many General Motors cars that enabled the driver of the vehicle to contact help in the event of an accident. And these devices allowed OnStar personnel to be able to pinpoint exactly where a car was so they could send help. And that was one of the first introductions of GPS to the commercial market. In contracted equipment, GPS is primarily used to prevent theft by allowing the owner of the equipment to track its location. And this device has a few benefits. It can alert you if the equipment is removed from its proper location, it can show when equipment has arrived on site, and it can also track the runtime for the equipment, which will allow you to keep tabs on how many hours until it will need scheduled maintenance. And then if we look at telemetrics, this is a broader tool in that not only does it have GPS, but they are more advanced in that they have more monitoring sensors and onboard diagnostics. The monitoring sensors collect data such as aggressive acceleration and driving behavior. In addition, it can provide information on machine health, fuel consumption, idling time, and hours used. Other advantages of telemetrics is for operating expense management. By utilizing the data, you can determine if the equipment is being used in the most efficient manner. And this will also allow you to plan maintenance schedules by viewing the number of hours the machine has been used. So now that we've looked at these theft-determined devices, we look at the cost-benefit analysis and have to ask ourselves, is this a need or a want? If the insured has suffered few if any losses, why would the insured spend thousands of dollars on these devices? So many of you might be wondering, how much would the insured's premium drop if they bought these devices? Well, today's not your lucky day because I'm not at liberty to tell you if or what we would credit insured policy for purchasing these devices, which is really on a count-by-count basis. But if an insured has suffered significant theft losses and the insurance premiums have doubled or tripled, perhaps at the time for the insured to invest money in these theft-determined devices. I've always equated it to this analogy, if you continually left your keys in the car and your car kept getting stolen, would you still be able to get car insurance? Probably not. But just because you have insurance doesn't mean you don't have to take corrective measures to protect your equipment, because in the end, if the insured isn't willing to invest in theft-determined devices or procedural changes, they'll have to put more skin in the game and either pay very high insurance premiums or self-insure their equipment. So perhaps cost is not a factor in purchasing these devices. What if the insured has very specific types of equipment? Some of this equipment is very specialized, so if it goes missing, what's the availability of buying the same type of equipment? Or maybe the insured's main concern is staying up-to-date with the equipment maintenance schedules. So whether it's a need for the insured due to theft or say a want due to preventive maintenance, the final deciding factor is an intangible that only the insured can answer. Now we're going to come to our first poll here. So which state has the highest amount of equipment theft? Now, we're going to do this. Yeah, those are the results. Do you see them, Shane? Yeah, can I scroll out of this, or no? Or you want me to just talk on these results? I can't get out of this slide. Oh, here we go. All right, so you guys are pretty smart. You chose Texas. So Texas is the number one theft state, and the city is Houston. And I saw the other, I think the next closest one is California, which in an older poll, California was the number one state. So either way, these are top four theft states in the country. And the one thing all these states have in common, they're all huge shipping states via container cargo ships. So much of this stolen equipment is put into a cargo container, loaded on a ship, and shipped out of the country, never to be seen again, which actually brings me to a personal story. So back about 17 years ago, I know I seem very young, but you don't have to answer that. I used to sell tractor-trailing trucks for Peterbilt down in South Florida. And we were approached by a telematics company to add their devices to our Ralph Lear day cab trucks. And back in 2006, telematics was still a fairly new device being used in the trucking industry, which now we see in the majority of trucking fleets today. But anyways, as luck would have it, two weeks after we had the equipment installed, two of our rental trucks were stolen. And they were stolen around midnight, and it was some seven hours later that we were notified by our customer. So we went on the telematics website and pulled up the GPS coordinates. We were able to find both of our trucks. And we're also very fortunate because when we did find them, they were already stripped down and about to be loaded into cargo containers near the port of Miami. So thankfully, we had those devices on the trucks and we were able to get them back. Okay, so why is equipment stolen? Well, construction equipment theft is a low-risk, high-reward opportunity. Of the estimated 1 billion in annual equipment theft, less than 25% of that stolen equipment is ever recovered. And unlike the cars that we drive, this equipment does not have titles and or registration. So this makes it much easier for thieves to sell this equipment on the open market with little fear of getting caught. And we all know how inflation has impacted our lives the past couple of years. And copped with equipment is no exception. Equipment costs more, and this is tied into supply and demand. And which, you know, shortage of computer chips and other necessary components for equipment drives a crisis and thus the attractiveness of theft. And I'll just see if you guys are still awake or we can do another poll. So I just want to clarify. So this is, if you're a broker, I know there's a lot of brokers and underwriters. So if you're a broker, you'd be asking the insured. If you're an underwriter, you're gonna be asking the broker. So how often do you as a broker or underwriter ask the insured or broker if they have theft-determined devices on their equipment? Well, I'm not sure if people are being honest, but that's kind of surprising to me. So I'll be honest, if a broker sends me a submission, it's loss-free, it's a loss-free account. I never go back to the broker and ask them, hey, if the insurer has theft-determined devices or site security or anything else that would make me feel more comfortable as if this was a high-theft account. This also goes back to what I talked about, the cost-benefit analysis. If there are no losses, what's the incentive to have these theft-determined devices installed on the equipment? And if insurers suffer little to few losses, they're not interested in the diagnostic aspect of these devices, I really believe insurers are likely to have these devices. This mouse is quite sensitive. All right, here we go. So there's only two things we can do to account for theft losses, and that's price-inductible. And we won't go into pricing account or percentages taken to adjust for theft losses, but I'll take a closer look at the impact of theft-inductibles. I apologize for the fire engine going by. So let's say an account has sustained significant theft losses over the past year. We can look at the impact that theft-inductible can have to turn an account around to an acceptable retainable loss ratio. So if we look at our insurer here, Careless Contracting, they obviously do care less because that's why they're taking these losses. So they suffered three theft losses over the past year of $75,000, $99,000, $64,000, with an AOP deductible of $5,000, and an annual premium of $208,000. So the resulting loss ratio is 85%. If we add the theft-inductible of $25,000, we can see that the theft losses would come down from $238,000 to $178,000, which would reduce the loss ratio from 85% to 64%. But obviously, going forward, we can't predict future losses, but if this seems to be a trend over a two-to-three-year period, this is something we would need to address from a theft-in-pricing standpoint if we wanted to sustain an account. So on the bottom left of that slide, I've put together a little different scenario. So say those losses above of $75,000, $99,000, $64,000, if I put a three-year total, not a one-year total, but a three-year total of $238,000, our average annual loss would be $79,333. So as an underwriter, one of the items that's imperative for us to underwrite it is to look at the loss rates. So if a broker sends this account to me and I want to loss rate it before I dive too deep into the account, I can say, you know what, if I want to write this at, say, a 60% annual loss ratio, I would need to earn an annual premium of $132,000. But if the broker tells me it's expiring at $85,000 and our average annual loss is $79,000, this would result in a loss ratio of 93%. At this point, I know there's no way to write this account profitably, and that's not even taking into account if we pay commission on the account, so then the combined ratio would be even higher. And I want to state that loss rating is not an effective way of underwriting an account, but I know in its current state, it's not profitable. So once you evaluate the loss range, you can take proactive measures such as deductibles and a price thing to see if this is an account that you want to add to your broker business. Okay, so underwriting tips for your insurer. So here's some proactive debt safety measures that you can share with your insurer. Number one, increase visibility, installing lights at your entrances, exits, and storage areas will help to deter thieves. Number two, temporary fencing. Fencing is great for unoccupied sites where visibility is very low. Make sure entry and exit gates can be locked when the premises are not in use. Number three, monitor construction sites. So closed circuit cameras, motion activated lighting, as well as security guards are all useful anti-theft deterrents. Four, employee background checks. Contractors should verify their employees' past employment history for any criminal activity, but monitor subcontractors. Many contractors use subs for various jobs and sites, similar to employee background checks. Contractors should also verify references to ensure that they have the experience and qualifications for the job. And finally, employee training. There should be a training program to teach employees how to identify suspicious activity. It should also include teaching them to secure tools and lock sheds, containers, and locking gates, if applicable. And well, my time is up. I thank you for your time, and now I'll turn it over to Michael St. Hill. Yes, sir. I have to go. Sorry. Hello. Hello, everyone. And I apologize for the delay. My name is Michael St. Hill, and I'm with the National Equipment Register. I know they did the intro before. Greetings out to my whole IMUA family and crew. For those who know me, we'll see you guys real soon, right? Next year at the annual event. So what I'm going to do, right? I mean, Shane, fantastic job. I appreciate you and thank you for the handoff. What I'm going to do is I want to kind of set the stage, right, to understand why we're all here, right? And to understand about equipment and the whole focus of this particular program today. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to start out with a poll to kind of set the foundation. So the first poll or the poll is, which do you believe is the number one peril for contractors equipment or for a contractor's equipment policy? And I'm going to give you about 30 seconds. Let everybody plug their answers in. And I want everybody to respond to this, please, right, because this is huge. So I'll give you a couple seconds. And then you get to look at my face, right? So how good is that? Oh, they're plugging away, they're plugging away. All right, okay. So what we see here, and Eileen, you could, let me just, give me one second. Let me just, okay, excellent, excellent. What I see here now, as soon as they can get me back, is that, you know, the majority of the group here chose theft, right? And it makes sense, because that's what we're here for, right? Is to discuss the theft problem with equipment. But theft is the number one peril, okay, as it pertains to contracts, equipment, and the exposure out there, and the losses that we're seeing on the back end, right? So as we go now and move forward, what I'm going to do is, here's the agenda, right? So what we're going to do is we're going to talk about the overall theft problem. I know Shane touched on it briefly, and I'm sure Greg would as well, right? You're going to see a lot of crossover in our different segments, because there are some real integral and key parts in this whole problem. So you got to kind of pay attention to those things. When you hear these things constantly being repeated, it's because these are items that needs that attention, right? So, you know, just understand this is done purposely, right? So we're going to discuss the overall theft problem. I have a two-bucket approach when dealing with or evaluating a risk, when you're looking at it from a theft perspective, right? Then it's the information and deterrence solution, right? This is the solution stage, because everybody can tell you what the problem is. But how do we provide solutions, not only for you as underwriters, and brokers, and insurance professionals, but also for your clients and your insurers, right? So we do touch on a couple of solutions that you can enact immediately after the class, right? And then the telematics and GPS, again, Greg touched on it. I mean, I'm sorry, Shane touched on it. Greg is going to touch on it as well. But we're going to talk about that, and then the summary at the end. So I'm pretty short, sweet, simple. We're going to make this kind of fun and enjoyable for everybody, okay? So the theft problem, right? Why? Why is construction equipment, I mean, these big, bulky, yellow, iron type of machinery that's out there that very few people understand the intricacies of it. Why is it such a big deal, right? So here's the big deal. It's anywhere between a $300 million to a billion-dollar problem every single year. And I'm talking about just the theft. So understand this is why this continues to reoccur and be an issue that needs to be addressed. Equipment, they are high-value asset items. And here's what that means. Not only they cost a decent amount of money, but all equipment that's out there, it's used to do work, do jobs, perform tasks for us. Unlike automobiles who, you know, I'm sorry, where you purchase a really nice Mercedes or a Bentley or a Rolls Royce, and I know some of you on this call, you own some of those nice vehicles, right? And you have them. They are basically for your entertainment, for you to look good, maybe for you to get from A to B. Construction equipment is purchased to actually do jobs and generate money, right? So larger tasks and jobs that are out there from earth moving to landscaping, highway work, what have you, these items are purchased to generate some type of income. So that is the appeal to it. Poor site security. Construction equipment is pretty much left out there. They're usually the first things that are out in any type of setting, right? They're usually in, you know, in the woods, in the highway and the stuff. It's really, really difficult to secure the job sites because that's what the construction equipment is there for, to clear out the sites and to do various jobs. Even if you're on location at other places, it's difficult, very, very difficult to physically secure every location that is out there that construction equipment operated. Poor equipment security. You'll hear this reoccurring theme about keys, okay? You look here in the lower right-hand corner, I have a picture of keys and this is something we bought back at N.E.R., you're talking about in the late 90s, early 2000. And basically it's a ring of keys that we got online. Yes, there was online back then, okay? We got online and this ring of keys, they pretty much can start every manufacturer unit that's out there today. Not just Caterpillar, not just CASE. We can pretty much go and start everything because equipment itself, they're not like automobiles. They don't have like real doors to lock. Sometimes they have the cabs and they're open and things like that. You can go in anytime, anywhere and you can start up this piece of equipment, which makes it easy to move. You know, imagine if someone had, you know, one key for, you know, every automobile or Mercedes or whatever that's out there and they can just go and start your car at any time. That's, you know, that's a problem, right? As mentioned before, they're very easy to sell because they generate money for you, you know? So those who know, these are desirable items. So it's easy to turn around and sell these pieces of equipment and the recovery rate is low. You know, Shane mentioned, you know, it's a low risk crime. You know, many, many people, especially those in law enforcement, which NER focuses and we go out there and we train, many law enforcement individuals are not familiar with construction equipment. They don't know what to look for and when you don't know something, you kind of tend to shy away from it and the thieves know it. So they know that the likelihood of them getting caught is very, very minimal. So now what's stolen, okay? So this is key. The lay people, right? Most of us, when we're thinking of construction equipment or we're thinking about valuing an asset, when you're looking at a fleet schedule, what most of the lay people do, we look at the most expensive item, right? You look at something that it costs the most, not necessarily what's most valuable. When evaluating a construction equipment or an agricultural equipment fleet schedule, be mindful to not only focus on the higher dollar valued items, as opposed to the most desirable. What thieves want out there are the smaller, more mobile, versatile items. There is not that much, although there is, but there isn't that much of a desire for huge earth moving pieces of equipment, right? The desire for that is low, or you really have to have your system set up. What they want is the skid stairs, okay? As you can see, that's the picture on the top. That's a wheeled skid stair. You have your excavators. You look at the next picture on the right, as per the construction pieces that I have on the slide. Then you have your generators, right? Your generators, your light towers, your mowers, your zero-turn mowers. The items that are small, easy to transport, but can do multiple jobs, those are the items that are most desirable. When evaluating the schedule, don't necessarily stick on, oh, wow, they have a $400,000 piece of equipment, and we need to safeguard that the most. No, it's the smaller items. That is a little nugget for you to take back with you, so you understand, as it pertains to the peril of theft, these are the items you need to be more aware of when evaluating the risk. The most commonly stolen brands are the brands that are most commonly sold, right? That are out there. Thieves are out there most of the time. They're out there, and they're stealing what's available to them, right? You got your Kubotas, your Kats, your John Dears. Those are the pieces of equipment that sell more and are more available out there, and they go out, and they snag them. I do want to touch on something, and I will touch on that in this slide. This is informational, right? This is an infographic that Verisk, NER, right, that we put out periodically throughout the year, especially during holiday times, and it gives you a synopsis, a snapshot of recent activity when it comes to the equipment world, and that's what NER does, right, or one of the things that NER does, and they show the top target states, the most desired or the top targeted pieces of equipment at that particular time, where they're stolen from, et cetera. As you see, Fane had a poll talking about the states and how they vary. I want to touch a little bit on that, again, to give you an understanding and a deeper perspective of why those states are more desirable. Yes, they are all trading, or I call them their hub states, right? They're all border states, and there's a lot of transportation and things that go in and out of those states, so you got your Californias, your Texas, and your Florida, and we all know that that's there, but also too, another reason, and it's a common sense reason, Texas, California, you're looking at some of the biggest states in the country, right, so more people, more states, more things being done, so the more chances for things being stolen, but I do want to dispel a little misnomer about these border states that everything that's stolen there is heading off in barges, right, that are being broken down and taken across the border, although that is true, and a lot of items do go, but it's not easy to get things across the border or to get things in barges. It's not easy. It's an organized type of thing, and those thieves are thieves, right, so they're a little more difficult to kind of corral than what's most common is your theft of opportunity, and with those thefts of opportunity, these items are being resold in the neighboring towns more likely than going across the border. These are things that's being sold on Craigslist, on Facebook Marketplace, on some of the online sites that we monitor and peruse, sometimes in newspapers, right, so these things are not necessarily going across the border or gone, so there is a good chance that some of these items can be recovered if they're situated properly, so just breaking it down a little more so you can understand, the most common states or the highest theft states are usually the bigger states, right, because it's more volume, and the things that are being stolen is the things that they can turn around fairly quickly that the average person can use in everyday jobs, and these are the things as an underwriter, as a broker or what have you to look and be mindful of and target those and pin those and find out ways to best secure those items when dealing with the peril of theft. So now I have a two-bucket approach, and what I mean by that is for, we're on one side now and I'm addressing this IMUA group, obviously it's focused more so on the underwriting side of the business, but for all of the underwriters and brokers that are on, you have to look at evaluating a risk, right, in general as a two-bucket approach, right, whatever you do on the front end, there is a ripple effect on the back end, which is the claim side, so the more that you're able to do on the preventative side of the business when evaluating a prospect or an actual insurer during, you know, renewal time or what have you, is the better that it will serve the claims group on the back end to not only, when a loss comes pertaining to theft, help them to identify it a little better, but also that, you know, it helps in the chances of recovery, because these are things that work hand-in-hand together. So there are steps that you can take on the front end to address some of the concerns that could possibly bite you on the back end dealing with our claims folks, because we don't want to leave the claims folks out either, because a lot of times they get left holding the bucket, right, so the two-bucket approach, you know, kind of do your part on the underwriting side, understanding the risk in depth, and then making it easy to transfer on in case something does happen that the claims group is positioned properly to address whatever situation that comes their way. So I told you all the sorry stories and all the hard stories and why equipment is stolen and everything, but you've got to provide some kind of solution, right? So my solution, like I said, it's multifold, but this is on the underwriting side, the preventative sides, things that you can do, whether it be through your loss control group, risk management group, or what have you. These are some of the things that you have available to you right now, okay? One of the solutions is information, and I know being in the industry, especially in the marine, you kind of feel that you're on an island and there is not a lot of information out there, but there is the National Equipment Register, NER, and basically what NER is, we are a national database and analytics company. A lot of those statistics that you're going to see in this presentation today, some of the stuff that Shane talked about, it's data that NER kind of puts together or it's powered by NER, even if it comes from another source, because by core, by nature, this is kind of what we do, all right? So we house this ownership information and theft data for construction and farm equipment, right? So basically, we are the single largest data source, right? We own the data set of construction, equipment, ownership, information, and theft data, right? And we're able to regurgitate that information to put out these reports, these analytics to help not only the insurance industry, but also law enforcement. And to kind of bring it in a little bit so you can understand, we're like the Department of Motor Vehicles for the construction industry, because there is no mandatory titling or licensing of construction equipment. So it's pretty much like the Wild West. And NER is the only component or the only entity that's out there that kind of tries to pull it together to give us a little more synergy, right? A little more structure, although it's not mandatory, but it helps a little bit. And any bit of information that you can get, it helps you. So this is a resource that you can pull on by having your insureds or your prospects register their equipment on NER, take that loss preventive step to identify themselves as potentially a better risk in the evaluation process. And then once we have that data, this is the two bucket, you do it on the front end and on the back end, if there is a loss or if there's a loss connected to theft, NER has the ability to kind of work their resources to try to find that item back for you. And I believe most of the entities that are on this phone through the IMUA have some familiarity with NER. So the other part of the solution, right? The front end solution is the deterrence part, okay? And Greg is going to go into deeper details with this, because that's more in his bucket and his warehouse. The other thing you can do on the front end or the preventative side bucket, the underwriting bucket is the physical security, right? You're trying to recommend these things, hey, put up signs, throw up decals, lighting is huge, you know, if you're able to do it, whether it be in your yard, if you're able to do it with the job sites, that's cool. You know, locks and fences, cameras, things like that. It's not always feasible to get these things done. But again, understand how most theft of construction equipment is. It's usually the opportunity. They see something, if one is in the corner in the dark and one piece of equipment is underneath the light, nine times out of 10, the thief is going to go to the piece of equipment in the dark, right? And try to get that. Same thing with chain set. If you're able to put decals or you're painting a machine, very rarely do a thief who's opportunistic wants that type of quote unquote heat on them, right? So they would rather go at the easy, low hanging fruit type of item. And when you're speaking to your insureds, make sure they're not the low hanging fruit. Make sure they put as many obstacles that is feasible and cost effective to put that gap between them and a possible theft. So this section, this slide, I want to spend a couple extra seconds on it. It's because, because I think it's really important because there's a lot of technology out there and with how fast things are moving, a lot of things get skewed and a lot of things kind of get blend up in the middle, right? So I'm going to go back and I'm going to break this down to you infantiles. So if you know some of these things, just bear with me, right? So GPS, the big, the hot topic, it's something that everybody's talking about, right? Okay. GPS stands for Global Positioning System, right? It is satellites in the sky floating around the earth. They're transmitting data from the sky or from machines to the sky, back to the machines, things like that. And they're usually communicated through cellular means, right? That's how we get the information either on our phones or via the computer. We don't get anything directly from the satellites, right? So they're global positioning systems. When it comes to theft pertaining to construction equipment, GPS, the term, is a genre. It's not a specific solution. It's a genre of solutions and not all GPS is the same. So the term GPS, when it pertains to equipment theft, is a very general term. So I'm going to break down exactly some of the different GPS systems or solutions that are out there. This is going to give you more insight when addressing a particular risk, looking at theft for construction equipment. One of the GPS types or the GPS solution is the fleet management system, right? So an insured can tell you, oh, I have GPS, right? When you're either trying to value it or, oh, I have GPS. And they say, OK, so what do you have? A fleet management system. What a fleet management system does, right? The fleet management system does exactly what it says. It manages the fleet. It lets the owner or the user know how many pieces of equipment and inventory, what's needed, where they can send certain things, and things of that nature, right? So it isn't necessarily, although they have capabilities, it isn't necessarily tracking the piece of equipment or letting you know the location is dealing with theft. It's just a fleet management system, OK? And you have to understand that. Then you have telematics. And again, another synonymous word that's used out there with GPS. You know, oh, I have telematics, or I have GPS, and they're kind of using names interchangeably. It's just, it's a GPS solution, right? And telematics focuses on, and I know Shane touched on it as well, focuses on the health of the machine, right? This is for the user, for the owner to know how to use this machine most effectively, most efficiently, so they get the most out of this machine. Engine hours, runtime, oil change, maintenance, tire pressure, hard brakes, stops, different things like that, nothing pertaining to theft, right? And then they have the last set of solutions, right, underneath this whole GPS umbrella, which is those solutions that are tracking and locate solutions, which are specifically for theft, right? It's if your item moves or it's stolen, these systems are designed specifically to turn on, give you a location, as well as track it in real time, and increases the chances exponentially for this item to be found and recovered. So I tell you this only for educational purposes to know, if you are evaluating a risk, and you are, you know, and you get that, yeah, I have GPS. This is the opportunity now for you to ask the next question as well, what kind do you have, and maybe delve a little deeper to find out if these systems have that tracking and locate capability, because these are the things that you need, especially with a contract's equipment or even a property risk. You know, the maintenance of a piece of equipment, yeah, it's helpful if you're addressing some of the other perils. But for theft, I don't think it really matters, right, how well the equipment is maintained. You're just trying to make sure it's with the rightful owner at the time of loss. So I'm going to end it here, right? And basically the summary is this, right? You have knowledge and you have available resources. Use them. They're there for you. You have NER. You have the different technologies that are out there. You know, get the information part done. You know, recommend the resources that are available to you, including physical deterrence and physical restrictions of the machine. Make sure you are a steward of this information and advise your insureds the steps that they can take. Even if they're not interested at this time, let them know. And why you do that is because, listen, man, the law of averages is something is going to happen. It's not if, it's when. And that's why we have insurance, right? If things didn't happen, then there would be no need for insurance. And being that this is an if-when type of scenario, let them know what's available out there. Utilize the resources that are out there and write yourself a good piece of business, you know, because at the end of the day, better risks equals less claims equals a more positive bottom line. So as entertaining as I think I was, right, during this presentation, I would like to show a quick video, if I am, just to pull things up. It's a little cheeky. It's fun. But if you can give me a couple of minutes and you can watch it, I would appreciate it. I think you'll get a kick out of it to pull everything together. Eileen, if I could get control. Awesome. Awesome sauce. Just bear with me. Let me see if I can get this to you. When you own heavy equipment, one of your biggest challenges is keeping it secure. That's because for thieves, turning your equipment into cash is easier than you think. In fact, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment is stolen from construction sites and farms throughout North America every year, resulting in significant costs and job site delays. Worse, almost 80% is never returned. You can protect your equipment with tall barriers, motion lights, monitoring systems, or other measures. But thieves are excellent at finding ways around them. And while law enforcement officers find stolen equipment, sometimes before anyone knows it's missing, they often can't identify the owner. That's because unlike automobiles, there is no DMV registration system or standardized vehicle identification numbers for heavy equipment. Without a national database, police have no way of knowing whose stolen property belongs to. But all of that has changed with the National Equipment Register. NER solves the problem by providing owners, insurers, and law enforcement officials with an effective resource for identifying and returning stolen construction equipment. Since its inception, NER's HelpTec and IronCheck services have helped owners and insurance companies to recover millions of dollars worth of heavy equipment by registering it in a centralized location using product identification numbers and other unique identifiers. This gives law enforcement a way to identify you as the machine's owner. Plus, HelpTec warning decals deter thieves by informing them of the risk if they steal or try to sell your equipment, adding another layer of cost-effective protection. And IronCheck provides an easy way for used equipment buyers and sellers to help determine if a machine is stolen before finalizing a transaction. This not only keeps you from buying a stolen machine, it helps you to demonstrate due diligence. We also support law enforcement efforts by tracking theft trends nationwide and issuing regional alerts. The effectiveness of the system is evidenced in the fact that many insurance companies provide deductible waivers or other incentives to owners who register their equipment with NER. Now you can deter thieves, protect your equipment, and recover it if it is stolen with registration and theft reporting services from NER. The Stolen Equipment Joyride ends here. Okay, so that was my little video. I hope everyone enjoyed it. I'm going to send this back to Eileen. And next up is Greg from Babico and a fantastic presenter. He'll be able to give you some more information about physical security. And I want to thank everyone for, you know, spending the time today to listen to us and I hope it's informative. So thanks again. Appreciate you guys. Go ahead, Greg. Great. Thank you, Michael and Shane. You guys did a great job. So pressure's on. Okay. So I'm going to spend the next few moments here talking about theft prevention, security, and technology and trying to put some of these things together. The best thing to do is identify the risk and then create some type of solution or identify a solution that's using a technology that will actually solve the problem or mitigate the risk. So well, that moved too fast. Let that go. So when we're talking about construction sites, there's some unique characteristics to construction sites because they have unprotected perimeters. The equipment is unsupervised. All the equipment looks the same. Could you imagine if everybody drove a 2020 blue Camry and then you would steal it, put it in a parking lot, there'd be no way to find out if it was stolen, it would never stand out. And that's what's happening right now with heavy construction equipment. Some of the sites are temporary. They're undeveloped perimeters, infrastructure at work sites. Some of them don't have communications, lights, and things like that. And then all the machines and the tools that are used there are very vulnerable and they're typically left in a very easy way for the users to get to in the morning when they come back, but it's also vulnerable for somebody to steal it. So this is our worst nightmare, whether it be at a facility, a parking lot, a truck depot, uninsured, not having proper lighting is really very attractive to the thieves. If you would have light it up, hopefully they would just go somewhere else. Another problem that we have here, and Michael really touched upon this with the keys. You can go on eBay and buy about 21 keys for another $10. You can buy 81 keys, which basically start any piece of heavy equipment that you could possibly find. So if you want to be a thief, it doesn't take much money for you to invest to get into that business. As they were mentioning, the smaller equipment is easier to steal. You don't see a crane driving down the road too often. You'd need special equipment and escort trucks, but you can put much of the equipment on backs of flatbeds and nobody would think twice. So if it's that easy to steal it, the crime of opportunity is there. It's very vulnerable. And since the pandemic, crime is up dramatically. The theft in all different parts of transportation is skyrocketing. But another issue is parts are very hard to find. So you may think that they're taking this entire piece of equipment just to use, but maybe they need parts out of that equipment and they're going to take all the parts out of that equipment and keep five other pieces rolling and moving. So the reward is out there for the property to be stolen from you. So I'm going to do a quick poll here. Do you ask detailed questions about the worksite, specifically what type of fencing, lighting, and locking? So I'll give Eileen some time here. Here are the results. Wow Wow, that's pretty good So if we're asking all the right questions, hopefully the people on the that are asking these questions aren't getting those losses because if all these webs of all these Work sites are really properly lit probably locked. It's pretty difficult to steal some of these things So let's go on to some of the technology that would help even lower those numbers. So Yards with lighting. I know Michael mentioned it. I think Shane mentioned it as well If you can't see what's going on in that yard Then you're asking for trouble Here you could see every one of these trucks and they all look the same and that's typically what all the construction equipment looks like After it's been moved It'll just blend right in What we're going to show here is different types of fencing now, this is a temporary fence It really isn't going to stop anybody but it's up there and it's important There's signs and hopefully this lighting This is even worse we see this on the side of the highways that's not helping anybody and Then here's a lock. So if they saying they're locking it, are they locking it with something like this or what? Are they really locking it with? So that brings me to the next slide. It's a short video and I'm gonna play this in a second This is a hardened padlock. It doesn't make a difference what the manufacturer is In the old days people would have bolt cutters and bolt cutters weren't as effective on hardened steel, but you can buy a Grinding wheel for under $100, which is a battery operated grinding wheel, which would basically cut through anything that you can imagine and Here you go watch how fast this goes You That's real time that's not that up out or being played fast, so if you can cut through a padlock that fast You're not really stopping anybody that wants to get in what you have to do is Let's see if I get the next thing Use secured locking that aren't susceptible to being cut like that So this is one example of putting a hardened lock on a gate You can't you'll notice in the next slide. You can't really get to any of the vulnerable parts That were being cut by the grinding wheel sure they can cut the entire fence in half But that's gonna take a lot more time. It's gonna draw a lot of attention The whole idea is make your yard not a soft target and so the thieves will go to another yard They're gonna end up with something that night if they're out shopping. Here's another type of product that could be put on temporarily The shackle you'll see is not you cannot get to it. It's not accessible so they can't cut it This would be something good for the tools or in the containers or even on the on the gate latches This is what a hardened material would look like when you go to cut it the sound isn't working, so I'm gonna talk over it What you'll see here is you're going to see the same grinding wheel with a brand new blade and They're gonna try to cut some hardened material if you're watching this what you'll see is you'll see the blade starting to glow and Then you'll see a tremendous amount of smoke on the back side and then the wheel will pop off Right about there. So now what happened is they really couldn't cut through that steel and They destroyed the blade See if I can go to the next slide here This is what happens when you try to use that blade again. You'll see that the blade is ruined and You can't really try to can't do anything with it watch The blade won't work Okay, let's see if I can get away from here now, so we'll ask you another questions now I know everybody was talking about GPS before and sorry about Mentioning it again, but I want to go a little bit deeper if I can so Do you ask questions about the GPS features that your clients say that they have Eileen you'll tell me when Yeah, we're at 50% right now voted, okay, I Know we're we're crushed for your results. Okay, so Okay, so that's pretty evenly split. So And that's probably what I expected so many people didn't ask questions many do and depending on what questions that you do ask It's relevant to finding out what happens next to GPS is really just a very generic term So it's really important to find out What type of GPS as Michael was mentioning before but I'm gonna get into that in a minute. This is a perfect example of Technology and hardware working together this at this video that I'm going to show you right now has a Tremendous amount of AI software in it as well and it's a perimeter software to protect the fencing area. You'll see here But it's identifies identified a person that's at the fence and What this system actually does is that when it notifies and it senses that there's a person there? It actually has speakers and it lets the The perpetrator know that they're being monitored and the police have been called In a few seconds, you'll hear well, you won't hear it You'll see that the speaker went off and the person's running away So that's very effective and you're not going to have 24-hour guards at all points of the perimeter. So this would be perfect on a job site You see if I can get the next site Okay, this is what it would look like on a perimeter from the sky. You'd have four different devices at the perimeter and It you wouldn't have to build the infrastructure so many of these work sites You don't have the infrastructure to build you can't invest the money in it because it has to be taken down at the end of the job So I'm going to show you how easy and how fast this product is typically put up This is not my product, but I'm very impressed by it So this is a time-lapse. Let's see if you can get it to play now. I Wish all my employees work this fast, but take a look at this. You'll see it So they just trailer the device Everything they need for that device is built onto that trailer. It has its own communications its own sensing and its own power So watch what happens. The first thing they do is they put up their sensors Solar power to run the machine so it could be out there for months at a time with built-in batteries and solar panels to recharge them Look directly up to its own community cellular communication They raise it It's all done and not only is it monitored remotely with technology They have central station to notify the police so that that took about three minutes to set that device up So if there was four of them around the corners, it would be done pretty quick. So I'm getting back to the GPS I wanted you to think about it for a second. So typical GPS for late logistics As Michael mentioned before it's going to give you the GPS for the entire time As Michael mentioned before it's going to give you location time speed hours of use preventive maintenance logging hour So that you know when to change your oil or do all types of work But the one question I want to ask you is that if they say they have GPS do you ask them who's watching it? 24-7 and what are they missing because guaranteed they're not watching it 24-7 They're actually going to use it as a reactive measure when something is missing and that's way too late What I want to do is talk about using GPS that has technology in it that gives intelligent notifications and that would be something like geofencing Everybody talks about geofencing But you use if you use it with an intelligent piece of software if the vehicle would it leave that work site? You'd be notified if somebody were to use that device on hours that that that place is not open So let's say they work every night Well, if it's being moved during the day Then you'd be notified or vice versa or over a holiday or a weekend if you're being notified that that device has left its Left the area, you know that it's being stolen instead of coming back three four or five days later And then you can go into recovery mode immediately and you wouldn't have to wait. So So these are not typical features of a fleet of a fleet management device These are specific features that you need to have Intelligent notifications and what that notification would actually do would be geofences with exceptions time-based alerts as I mentioned before and custom baits custom-based exceptions that fit your use case not everybody's Notifications would work depending on the company hours and how they're working but you have to curtail and Customize something that would work so that you're getting notified and know something happens you have to have a system set up so that in the event that this notification goes out and let's say it's an email or A text or a phone call somebody's there to take the call on the next slide I'm going to show you what was happening in real time. So we set up a an intelligent alert and we put it on a Device so that if a door was to be opened outside of its geofence, which should never happen we had an immediate notification and we sent an Email to the central station or somebody at that moment instantly. So that's what I'm talking about a notification and Now hopefully you have some time for questions. I know we were short on time. So I might have rushed through it. So I apologize All right, thank you Greg As you said now it's time for questions and to ask a question Please go to your control panel and click on the question box and type your question and submit it And we do have a question from Mark He asked who is stealing these items and Where are they showing up? Are they being shipped out of the country? Well, I'll jump on that Thank you for the question mark Who's stealing these items right? Anybody who really wants to to make some money, right? I mean you you have right you have basically the and what what I like to focus on is the is the Thieves that are opportunistic, right? This is something that you know, you can turn around quicker than stealing an automobile This is something that you know, there isn't any exposure. You don't need paperwork and titles in order to transfer Quote-unquote ownership ownership of this piece of equipment So the people that are out there are regular everyday common thieves that see an opportunity and they know they can make a quick dollar because they'll charge you less than what the machine is worth and they know there would They will have receptive Buyers, right they have individuals out there and they could be good law-abiding citizens but if you're out there searching for skids there and you see one online for $7,000 and you're like this can serve my purpose and this is a $40,000 machine You're gonna go buy it right and you're gonna think this is this is a good deal So you have the it's it's it's the common everyday thieves now keep in mind They also have the organized rings right the theft rings and those are a little bit more And those are a little more harder to deal with where you have organized crime and and people who are stealing Specific machines for specific purposes that sometimes end up going overseas But for the most part, it's the common people and where do they show up they show up in the neighboring towns They show up online. They show up in your in your neighborhoods. Listen to me You'll be surprised how many stolen pieces are at current job sites now Where the actual operator of the machine has no idea that this piece of equipment is stolen because they believe they Purchased it legally. And in fact, there is no quote-unquote legal purchase of a piece of equipment because we're not transferring titles indeed So it's the average the average Joe Or the average thief a lot of the time that is that's most commonly stealing these items Thank you for that Michael We have another question this one's from Beth Are there difficulties collecting stolen and found equipment when in another country? Listen guys jump in. I'm sorry Yeah Overseas stuff is is absolutely difficult, right? We any all right, we have a presence in both Mexico and Canada and it is very difficult and why it's difficult is because even if the great technology works and You know exactly where it is. the difficulty comes in the communication with law enforcement, right? So you know, the United States law enforcement is not synonymous with law enforcement in Canada, nor is it in Mexico, right? So those are the pitfalls that you have to go through. We've had certain scenarios where, oh, we knew exactly where the piece of equipment was, but yeah, nobody's going to get that. And nobody, you know, you just have to kind of eat that law. So yeah, it is tough. What we do is we train a lot of the border patrol, especially down in Texas, the Laredo guys down in Texas, to help them to be observant as these things are transported across the border. If they're not like Gary and Shin had mentioned, if they're not in barges, if they're not in containers, if it's something they can see and they're being transported over land borders, we try to train them to be observant of these things and use NER like they would use the Department of Motor Vehicles to check the quote-unquote ownership of the asset through us, so we do that. But yes, it is extremely difficult to get something, especially a piece of equipment from overseas. Yeah, and I'll just jump on back to Michael's here. I mean, that's exactly right. The jurisdictional differences between countries is really, it's kind of crazy when you think about it. Like I just saw this special, I think it was 60 Minutes, they crossed the border from New York into Canada and because the equipment was on this residence, on their property, law enforcement cannot go and take that equipment. They have no jurisdictional right to take that equipment, which seems amazing. So you steal the equipment, you put it on your property and you as the owner have no right to go back and get that equipment. So that's the problem, once this equipment is stolen, good chance you're never going to get it back. Even if you could look at it and say, that's my equipment, doesn't matter. They're not going to do anything. Okay, thank you very much. And another question, Shane, when would you order loss control? Well, it's kind of subjective, right? It's on a count-to-count basis. Typically we see multiple theft losses, we would send out loss control, right? And aside from theft losses, if we saw like fire losses, we can go and say, this could be caused by poor maintenance by the insured. And many people might not be aware of this, but hydraulic fluid is extremely flammable. So if these lines weren't, the hydraulic lines weren't maintained properly, that's how this equipment catches fire. So the hydraulic fluid gets on a hot piece of equipment and immediately ignites. So the main goal of loss control is to establish or modify management practices, and this will in turn reduce the likelihood of claims being filed against the insurance company. So it's like a value-added benefit for the insured that we provide at no cost, and it's really a win-win outcome for both parties. All right, thank you for that, Shane. So this question's from Donna. What percentage of thefts do you think are inside jobs, employee dishonesty, employee theft? I'll jump, I mean, I'll start. That's a great question. I don't know if there's statistical analysis to answer that question. But employee theft is huge. That's why the background checks are very important, and same with the subcontractors. That's very important too. The subcontractors on your policy, that's something you have to look at too. When these contractors hire the subs, they have to look at their background. Do they have a lot of theft losses? What are their hiring procedures? So that's all taken into account. I wish I had those stats for you because it's a very good question. I don't know that, I mean, I don't know if Michael has it with any. I don't know who would be able to track that, to be honest. Right, so we do have stats, not as in-depth as identifying what you would call an inside job. But a lot of times, it is, right? Because people are seeing the pieces of equipment, understanding that it's not being secured properly, or that it's easy to move, or the ownership information is easy to transfer over because there's no record of it. But unfortunately, I don't have anything that I can touch right now to come up with the stats. So let me talk to my guys and see if I can get something, and then I'll send it to the group, I'll send it to the IMUA, and they'll be able to distribute it out. All right, thank you very much, Michael. So I have a question from Lisa. How do you download the slides? And I'm actually looking in the handouts, and I don't see, Allie or Eileen, would you be able to drop the handouts? Sure, I'll add them right now. Yes, in the chat or in the handouts tab. Perfect, I'll do that right now. Thank you. You're welcome. Let's see. So a question from James. Where can we send our clients for more education on this subject? That's a good question. Well, I mean, they can go to the different organizations they belong to. The IMUA is a wealth of information. I think that would be a great place to start on something like this, because if they have a specific question, I know that, Lillian, you would know some of the people involved that could point them in the right direction. I'll be happy to help. The technologies that I was showing today really weren't mine, but I could certainly point them out as well. Yes, yeah, and the IMUA has a Lost Control and Claims Committee, and so we could get you in touch with some of the different organizations that put out information on cargo theft, such as NER and Cargonet and other organizations. Okay. This question is from Juan. He's asking, this question's from Michael. He was going back to the, I think, the first poll question you had on the number one peril. He wanted to know what are the metrics used? Was it number of claims or total amount incurred? Right, so the metrics was used, well, let me just date it back to you. NER is connected or is a subsidiary of Verisk, which is ISO, the Insurance Services Office Claim Search, right? So this information comes from our claim search data as per the claims that are funneled through claim search when processing a claim. So it's the stuff that we see internally as per the losses that come through. So that's where the data is, and I think I missed the other part of the question. He asked if it was- Oh, it was number of claims or total amount incurred. No, it's not that. No, no, we don't focus on the dollar amount. It's the number of claims that come in, not necessarily the value of the losses. Thank you. Thank you for that. And then we have a question from Steven. What type of company is more apt to use NER or advanced GPS with geofencing, et cetera? Right. Well, we have a really good imprint in the rental community, right? Those companies that rent equipment. So we're affiliated with the ARA, the American Rental Association. And we have a program with them where we give them the ability to register their equipment for free on our database due to their ARA membership. And we work that on the back end with ARA. So we have a great imprint in those that rent because they understand the need or the subjectivity of being exposed to theft. We also have huge clients in the landscaping, highway work, and general contracting information. But I know Shane had mentioned something about companies who haven't experienced a loss, right? So they're feeling pseudo-invincible and they're out there and saying, hey, well, why? Why would I go out there and put a GPS or put any type of special locks or even register my equipment? And those are the individuals or the companies that we try to persuade. And we do that with information, with data, to let them understand that it's a community thing, right? So if only one company does it, then it's not benefiting the community, right? It has to be done in some type of mass in order for it to have a true effect and start denting the equipment theft problem. We see it. I mean, those numbers are staggering, 300 million to a billion dollars a year. This is an annual reoccurring issue. So the companies that use us, I don't wanna say that they're savvy, but they're a little more in tune. And they understand the shortfalls of the construction industry and they take those loss preventive steps to get their equipment safeguarded. And ultimately, I believe those are better risks. Those are better risks that when evaluating a particular insurer. Thank you. And then I have one more question. This is kind of dovetails off of some of the other questions about stolen equipment going to other countries, but they wanted to know specifically about, between, I guess, the US and Canada. Beth was asking how much stolen equipment goes to Canada or can you elaborate a little bit more on equipment that goes to Canada? Right, yeah. I mean, there is equipment that goes to Canada. I mean, not as much to like the cities you go and talk about in the Northeast and stuff. You're talking about the Torontos and stuff. We have a good, at least with NER, we have a good relationship, a good hand. But when you start getting into the more Western parts and stuff, the more rural parts of Canada, Shane mentioned their laws and jurisdictions are so much different. You could know where it is, but you can't get it. So there is an amount. I mean, if you're up there in Montana and stuff, I'm sure things go across that Northern border and go out there. But ironically, you don't see it as much of a mass as you do in more of the Southern borders and some of the larger states, right? So you gotta understand the states that border Canada, how big they are, how much volume that they have as per equipment. And that's how you can kind of get a quick synopsis of their exposure when it comes to theft. And those states are not as prone to theft as let's say a California, a Texas, and or Florida. All right. Thank you. That's all the questions we have. And I know someone earlier asked about the slides for today. So if you go to your chat feature, it's on your control panel. Allie, thanks for popping the link to the slides in. You can go there and have a link to download the slides. So you'll just go to the chat. We also have our link to our survey results there. I mean, I'm sorry, link to our survey, not our results yet. I'm jumping a little bit ahead, a link to our survey. Please take a few moments to complete the survey. Your feedback is really important to us. We wanna know what worked well and what we can, also some ideas for future webinars. So now it's time for most engaged attendee. And our most engaged attendee is Beth Den Hartog. She asked a number of questions today. Congratulations, Beth. We'll send you a $25 Amazon gift card. There you go. All right. And this concludes today's webinar. Thank you to our presenters. Thanks, Greg, Shane, and Michael. This was really fantastic today. And thanks also to you, our attendees, for your participation and your questions. We hope to see you again soon. Have a great rest of the day. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye, everyone.

National Equipment Register

equipment theft

construction industry

farm industry

risk evaluation

stolen items

preventive measures

telematics

GPS tracking devices

mandatory titling

opportunistic thieves

recovery difficulties