California leads in luxury vehicle thefts in U.S., new report finds

(October 23, 2014) DES PLAINES, Ill — California has the most luxury vehicle thefts in the country according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), which today released its latest report on luxury vehicle thefts.

NICB analysts review data contained in the National Crime Information Center's stolen vehicle file and identify thefts of luxury vehicles as defined in the 2013 market classifications published by Automotive News.

The top five states for luxury vehicle thefts were: California (1,390), Florida (863), New Jersey (570), New York (462) and Texas (338). The New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) reported the most luxury vehicle thefts with 957. Next was the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA CBSA with 609. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach, FL CBSA rounds out the top three with 582 thefts.

The report focuses only on thefts of 2011, 2012 and 2013 model year vehicles stolen in the United States between Jan. 1, 2010 and Dec. 31, 2013. During this period, there were 5,570 luxury vehicles reported stolen to law enforcement.

Luxury vehicles are further broken down into three categories: Compact, Mid-Sized and Premium. The thefts within those categories were: Compact (2,625), Mid-Sized (2,245) Premium (700).

Of the 5,570 luxury vehicle thefts in this report, 963, or 17 percent, remain unrecovered as of Dec. 31, 2013. Both Compact and Mid-Sized Luxury vehicles — with considerably more thefts — had relatively low unrecovered rates at 15 and 16 percent respectively. In contrast, Premium Luxury vehicles had a much higher unrecovered rate (29 percent) which is indicative of their value in the illicit vehicle market at home and abroad.