Our meetings are held the second Thursday of each month at the Renton City Hall, 7th floor. 
Please feel free to attend our meetings but be sure to bring your insurance or Law Enforcement identification.  Contact Doug Young at 206 205-7426 for further information.

This award is presented to a member of the Western Regional Chapter of IAATI or a member of one of the WSATI Chapters for outstanding service and unselfish dedication to the organization.  The recipient can be law enforcement or civilian, active or retired.   A committee comprised of Western States Auto Theft Investigators Association, Northwest Chapter Executive Board Members will determine the recipient.  Please forward nominations to Doug Young at dyoung@wsati.org along with a brief background of the nominee, along with a contact telephone number and e-mail address of the nominator.  Nominations for this award will be accepted after February 2010.  The deadline for submission of nominations will be April 23, 2010. Nominations should be sent via e-mail to Doug Young at dyoung@wsati.org.

The presentation will be made at the WSATI Training Seminar in San Diego in May 2010.

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Zangar <FZangar@lojack.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 8:27:27 PM
Subject: State Farm News

Nice article posted on the State Farm internal news.

Frank Zangar 
Law Enforcement Liaison 
Lo~Jack Corporation 
P.O. Box 8179 
Lacey, WA 98509 
Phone: (206) 255-6248 
Pager: (360) 866-3489 
Fax: (360) 455-8754 

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Roarty [mailto:robert.roarty.i9ke@statefarm.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 3:33 PM
To: DZLOCK@nicb.org; Frank Zangar
Subject: Article

Below is an article that every State Farm associate in AK, WA, OR, ID, MT, & HI will see for the next few days when they log onto their computer each day. Our cool graphics have been omitted, but the text is there.

Call me if I can be of assistance, and see you tomorrow. 

Rob 

Robert Roarty 
Special Investigative Unit 
253-912-7973 Direct 
253-255-4267 Cellular 
253-912-7985 Facsimile 
PUTTING THE BRAKES ON AUTO THEFT
(5/14/2007 4:20:00 PM - Pacific Time)

At a Glance: 
DuPont is hosting the Western States Auto Theft Investigators seminar. 

Car theft has an impact on our rates and customers. 

Partnering with law enforcement can diminish crime rates. 

The DuPont Zone Operations Center is hosting a meeting of the Western States Auto Theft Investigators (WSATI), an organization linking the insurance industry and law-enforcement officials. According to Special Investigative Unit (SIU) Claim Representative Ben Remak, it's a partnership vital to combating the massive problem of auto theft.

"By working with police agencies and getting them to see the problem from our point of view, they become an incredible resource for our SIU [representatives]," Ben said. "To some degree, our SIU [representatives] are also a resource for law enforcement nowadays. They have somebody they can call if they find a car. One of the things we do is reach out to the law-enforcement community. We teach at the state police academy so that they get some exposure to insurance fraud. Law enforcement may come across something that didn't seem right, such as a staged accident or burglary, and now they know what to look for and who to call."

Dale Gesner of the National Insurance Crime Bureau began the WSATI seminar with a discussion of Vehicle Identification Numbers (VIN), which car thieves sometimes remove or alter to change the identity of a stolen vehicle. The VIN is a unique 17-character code placed on every motor vehicle. It offers information about the country of origin, vehicle characteristics, model year, and assembly plant. Although some are in readily-visible locations, others are placed in confidential locations (such as inside a fender or dashboard) to confound thieves. Even so, it's not a foolproof system.

"Crooks often specialize in a certain type of vehicle," Dave said. "They learn where all the [VIN] numbers are on it." 

"Auto theft is increasingly a huge problem across our zone, especially in Washington," Ben said. "We're No. 4 in the country for auto thefts, and two of the top 10 locations for car thefts are in the state [of Washington]: the Seattle-metro area and Yakima. That's due to a combination of facts. We're a port state with very low penalties for those convicted of vehicle theft. We have a street-racing problem. And meth is a huge problem in Washington: When you're up for 48 hours straight, you have a lot of time on your hands, so you may steal cars to use in other crimes like mail theft and identity theft." 

Auto theft directly impacts our Auto insurance customers. "It raises the rates," Ben said. "The average car-theft value is $7,000. If you have insurance, you pay for that. It damages our policyholders industry-wide through uninsured motorist claims, by taking police away from other duties, and because a tremendous amount of auto thefts are fraudulent. If they owe a lot of money and don't want to continue to pay for a car, they may drive it far away, destroy it, burn it, or put it on a container, send it to Eastern Europe, and report it stolen."

Ben said that by strengthening the partnership between our industry and law-enforcement, we can build upon past successes. "It has worked out very, very well," he said. "Plus, we have more resources than they have. State Farm is good about donating cars for law enforcement to use as bait cars and surveillance cars."

He cited this seminar as an example of our commitment to fighting auto theft.