According to recent data, thieves seem to avoid this Toyota hybrid vehicle.
The National Insurance Crime Bureau has released its statistics related to auto insurance claims for stolen vehicles and has found that the Toyota Prius is rarely targeted by thieves.
This popular hybrid vehicle has a very low theft rate
Furthermore, the report also showed that even when this vehicle is stolen, it is common for law enforcement to find it quickly and return it to its owner. This can mean good news for the auto insurance premiums that are paid by the owners of these cards.
Prius models from 2008 through 2012 have a theft auto insurance claim rate of one in 606 stolen vehicles.
The average theft rate for all models that are currently on the road during that same model year period is one in 78. Clearly, these hybrid vehicles are not a prime target by car thieves. From September 4, 2000 through June 30, 2012, only 2,439 of this car had been stolen.
The report also suggested that thefts of this vehicle were dropping, as the numbers from 2011 were higher than the auto insurance claims of this regard this year.
It is important to note, though, that the hybrid version of this vehicle first started being manufactured in 2006. The first generation of the car – a standard combustion engine – stopped being produced in 2003, so there was a three year gap where new vehicles were not being introduced to the marketplace. That said, the previously purchased vehicles were still on the road.
The majority of the thefts auto insurance claims of the vehicle occurred in California. Nearly half of all of the thefts, 1,062, occurred within that state. In a distant second place was Florida, with 127 thefts, and then New York, followed by Washington, and Texas after that. There have been 1.2 million individuals vehicles of this model sold within the United States, meaning that it represents over half of all the hybrid vehicles that are currently being driven.
These auto insurance and theft statistics were gleaned from the National Crime Information Center, so that the National Insurance Crime Bureau could create its report regarding the theft of hybrid vehicles as a whole.