Ontario Announces Mandatory Branding:

Written-off Vehicles MUST be Salvage or Irreparable

June 15, 2000

Ontario -- Transportation Minister David Turnbull has announced that the Ontario government intends to introduce legislation that, if passed, would require insurers and others to report information on severely damaged cars that are written off.

Since July 1998, a voluntary program has been in place to identify those vehicles and change their registration status to show either "salvage," meaning the vehicle has the potential to be rebuilt, or "irreparable," in which case the vehicle is "parts only" and never able to be roadworthy.

Over 50,000 motor vehicles that have been reported stolen remain unrecovered, and the rate of auto theft has increased by 79 percent in the last 12 years. Branding of registration documents discourages vehicle registration fraud and theft activities and provides consumers with the information they need about a used vehicle's history.

Ontario has over 400 collision repair facilities that are licensed to inspect "salvage" branded vehicles once repaired. If the vehicle successfully passes this structural integrity inspection, the vehicle's registration brand is changed to "rebuilt." This is a permanent brand and can never be removed. The new legislation is expected to be "permissive' legislation that will allow the Ministry to introduce a mandatory branding program implementation date, with other modifications at a later date without having to receive legislative approval again.

The collision repair and auto refinish industry has been a major partner with the Ministry in the introduction of the Stolen and Salvage Vehicle program in 1998 and again today, and supports mandatory branding. It is anticipated that used parts will become more readily available and cheaper. Collision repair shops, that were not fixing many repairable vehicles because of high salvage prices, caused by fraud and theft of Vehicle Identification Numbers (VINs), will probably begin repairing those cars. Many shops have experienced dealing with consumers who have purchased a collision damaged written-off vehicle, some with structural damage, who were unaware of the vehicle's history.

By removing the incentives for fraud in obscuring a VIN history, the salvage marketplace will now be better able to adjust pricing to a fair market value for damaged vehicles.

As reported by Ontario's Collision Industry Action Group (CIAG)