Background
After studying and identifying key issues with the equipment theft problem in the United States, David Shillingford founded the National Equipment Register in 2001. Through discussions with insurers, equipment owners and law enforcement it became clear that a significant improvement in the way information is shared between different segments of the equipment industry, their insurers and law enforcement was a critical and cost-effective part of the solution.
NER is designed to help facilitate information sharing with insurers, equipment owners, and law enforcement. We manage a custom-designed database that records equipment theft and ownership records, offers analytic tools and assistance to the insurance and law enforcement industry, quality-controls the equipment details of loss reports to ensure data accuracy, and employs a skilled team of equipment analysts with close industry contact.
NER obtains its funding from the insurance industry, HELPtech® registrations, IRONcheck® service, and IRONwatch® purchases.
Operations
NER Equipment analysts have a unique depth of knowledge relating to the identification of off-road equipment using serial numbers and other component numbers. They combine their technical expertise with their knowledge of heavy equipment and industry contacts to quality-control the incoming data and carry out and monitor searches on the NER database.
NER Database
We designed the NER database to record detailed information about equipment ownership and theft. We collect multiple points of identification for a single machine and apply a unique search algorithm to find possible matches in the database of over 100,000 equipment theft reports.
NER also has access to more than 15 million ownership records of construction and farm equipment based upon information provided from equipment manufacturers, fleet owners, and available public records.