Gone in five days
• Doctor’s gift to pregnant wife disappears from St Andrew driveway • Rise in motor vehicle theft claims driving up insurance premiums
Published:Sunday | November 10, 2024 | 12:06 AMAndre Williams - Staff Reporter
A medical doctor is in shock after a brand new 2025 Toyota Rav4 he purchased on November 1 vanished from his St Andrew home last Wednesday – a mere five days later.
What is even more unsettling, Wayne West* told The Sunday Gleaner, is that the theft occurred on the very day he had planned to install additional security features.
West explained that the new car, which he had been for pursuing over a month with the dealership, was a gift for his pregnant wife.
With his heart initially set on a 2024 Rav4, West said he was convinced at the last minute to buy the 2025 model.
“I was about to buy the 2024 and my sales rep told me that the 2025 is about to come the other week and I said, ‘Alright. Let me get the latest version and start the new year nice’,” he recalled.
That joy would be shortlived.
West recalled last driving it last Tuesday, returning home shortly after 1 p.m. due to the approach of Tropical Storm Rafael.
“The vehicle was parked inside the yard, gate closed, and I woke up the next morning and didn’t see it,” the stunned doctor recalled. “Because of the rain, we were inside the whole day, and we wake up back Wednesday morning and did not see the vehicle.”
Concerned about the rising number of vehicle thefts, West had been planning to add security features after learning of recent incidents from friends in the medical community.
“The vehicle came out like I drove the vehicle, and when I went to Toyota Jamaica, they are saying they don’t understand how the vehicle moved,” he said, expressing confusion.
In 2009, Toyota began offering Toyota Safety Connect – a built-in subscriber-based suite of services – in a number of countries. After registering a vehicle, the customer would get access to some of the features via a smartphone application. These include emergency roadside assistance, maintenance reminders, vehicle health reports, vehicle maintenance alerts, and collision notifications.
Also among the features is a stolen vehicle locator. If a vehicle is stolen, a customer would need to file a police report and then call Toyota’s 24/7 response centre. An agent would then contact the local police and start helping them to locate the vehicle using GPS technology. Most new models now come with a 10-year free Toyota Safety Connect trial period (4G network-dependent). Once the trial ends, the customer can retain the programme for a fee.
QUEST FOR ANSWERS
In his search for answers, West said he asked the dealership whether they could use their system to pinpoint the location of his vehicle.
“The manager told me that once the vehicle was handed over to me, it would be unethical for them to put in a tracker there. I said, ‘Okay, is there any way you guys could use the computer to check on a Toyota global system to check where the car is since it’s a 2025 vehicle and it has only been four days since I had the vehicle?’” he said, adding that they were unable to.
“It’s not like I had the vehicle for a month or two months; it’s five days. I picked it up Friday, went to work Friday night. I went to work Saturday night, went home Sunday morning. I was at home all day Sunday. I went to work on Monday, back home. Tuesday, because of the rain, I left early. Saw my last set of patients at 1 p.m., then I went home,” the medical doctor recounted.
On Friday, when The Sunday Gleaner contacted Toyota Jamaica at its Spanish Town Road-based headquarters, where the vehicle was purchased, to find out whether Toyota Connect’s vehicle recovery service was available in this island aand whether West’s case was an anomaly, we were advised that the sales manager was in a meeting and could not offer a comment at this time.
Coincidentally, on November 1, when West purchased the vehicle, The Gleaner led with a story – ‘Grand theft auto’ – detailing the rising cases of motor vehicle theft in the St Andrew North Police Division and other areas.
The RAV4 was stolen from the neighbouring St Andrew South Police Division, where some of the cars stolen from the northern division were recovered.
West said when he contacted his insurers, they were just as astonished.
INSURANCE IMPACT
Peter Levy, vice-president of the Insurance Association of Jamaica (IAJ) and managing director of British Caribbean Insurance Company, found the doctor’s dilemma baffling.
“Wow, that’s crazy! I’ve never actually come across that before,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
IAJ data indicate that between January and September this year, 957 stolen vehicle claims were made locally – already more than the total filed in 2023.
Some 952 claims were filed last year – 11 per cent more than the 862 claims in 2022. There were 686 claims in 2021.
Levy said that before the pandemic, insurers were seeing annual claims of stolen vehicles between 630 and 760.
He noted that these figures only reflect vehicles with theft coverage and do not include those covered by third-party insurance, which complicates the overall picture.
The Sunday Gleaner was unable to get an overall picture of the situation from the Jamaica Constabulary Force before press time, but Deputy Superintendent Dalian Clarke indicated just over a week ago that the St Andrew North Police Division saw 119 cases of vehicle theft between January and October of this year. He estimated the combined losses to vehicle owners in the division so far this year to be upwards of $600 million.
Levy explained that there are typically two main reasons cars are stolen: one is for parts, and the other is for use in other criminal activities. However, he pointed out that new cars, such as the 2025 RAV4, are less likely to be targeted for parts due to their limited market.
“The more popular the car the better target it is, so brand new cars usually aren’t targeted for that ... . If you’re gonna sell parts for a 2012 AD Wagon or Honda Fit, you’re gonna have a much bigger market because there are more and more of those vehicles out there,” the IAJ executive said.
The IAJ vice president noted that the increase in theft claims is driving up premiums for motor vehicle insurance.
“The thing about a theft claim is that almost every theft claim is a total loss – you are paying for the entire value of the vehicle. When you have an accident, normally with most accidents, you are repairing, so it’s not costing you the entire value of the vehicle. You have a $5 million car, you have a repair job for $800,000 or $1.2 million. But with a theft case, you’re paying for the value of the car. Most of the time, they are not recovered,” Levy said.
He told The Sunday Gleaner that insurers have had cases where they tracked the stolen vehicles within a day and found only shells.
“Every panel and everything that could be unscrewed is unscrewed and what’s left is basically the chassis … ,” Levy said, emphasising the parts-driven crisis.
“Theft cases are particularly troublesome in terms of cost to insurers, and yes, they will have an impact on premiums. Some companies actually look on the make and model and if it’s one of those vehicles that gets stolen more frequently, they will have different insurance premiums for those vehicles to cover that additional risk. So it definitely drives the cost of insurance,” Levy acknowledged.
*Name changed.
Top vehicles targeted by thieves in St Andrew North
Toyota Mark X
Toyota Crown
Toyota Land Cruiser
Toyota Probox
Toyota Axio
Nissan AD
Some Subaru models