Hint: Our pictures show it’s higher than you think – find fraud, stop fraud.
Approximately 20% of all registered personal autos are pickup trucks. So not including the old Econoline vans, new Sprinters, and other types of at-risk vehicles, you know on average that at least 20% of your book at risk for commercial use. Some may argue that it is really the larger pickups that are at risk; however, in testing carriers’ books we have found that smaller pickups show just as much commercial use as the larger trucks and vans.
Our recent tests with several carriers have shown a 4% commercial use rate when reviewing photos of at-risk vehicles. That is twice what the industry thinks the exposure is:
- 2% showed signage,
- 1% showed a commercial plate,
- 1% showed tools of the trade (ladder racks, tool boxes, etc.).
The most abused carrier tested showed a 20% commercial use rate of at-risk vehicles. What would your books show?
How to Discover and Prove Commercial Use Fraud
The saying, pictures are worth a thousand words, could have been written to describe commercial use with a slight modification: Pictures are worth thousands of dollars. Pictures are among the best proof you can have to prove commercial use! Imagine being able to review your at-risk vehicles at Point of Sale or Renewal by seeing the most recent pictures of the vehicle. Pictures show the signage, the commercial license plate, and the tools of the trade.
And how do we find commercial use fraud? The proof is in pictures – pictures DRN obtains from billions of nationwide vehicle sightings, plus the 160 million more we gather monthly. These sightings are gathered from license plate recognition data and include license plate images, along with a time, date and location of the sightings. And it’s the license plate images that reveal the telltale signs of commercial use –signage, commercial license plates, toolboxes, ladder racks and more. These sightings provide pictures carriers can’t get anywhere else, and they are changing the way carriers underwrite policies and investigate claims.
What is the ROI?
Based on a 4% rate of commercial use of at-risk vehicles, carriers saw over a 20 times return on investment. In my opinion, you can’t get much better than that . . . unless it turns out you have more than 4% commercial use.
Find the Fraud. Stop the Fraud.
