Car theft is one of the most stressful experiences a vehicle owner can face, and its impact goes far beyond the individual victim. Although vehicle thefts fell 19.1% in the first half of 2025, only 56.5% of stolen vehicles in Canada were recovered. Every car that never comes back is written off at its full cash value, and the most common way insurers recover those costs is through higher premiums. If you’ve wondered why premiums in renewal seasons keep increasing while the news says car theft is decreasing, this is the mechanism.
In this article, you’ll learn how vehicle theft affects car insurance rates, why premiums can continue to rise despite fewer thefts, and what drivers can do to protect themselves.
Our Methodology
To understand how stagnant vehicle recovery rates influence auto insurance premiums in Canada, we relied on two primary data sources.
- Équité Association’s Auto Theft Trend Report (January–June 2025). We examined Équité’s most recent national auto theft dataset, focusing on theft volumes and recovery rates by region. For context and year-over-year comparison, we analyzed the same period in 2024 and reviewed multi-year data included in the report to identify any longer-term trends.
- MyChoice Internal Car Insurance Inflation Data (2024–2025). We supplemented external theft data with MyChoice’s proprietary insurance inflation dataset, derived from thousands of real quotes submitted through our platform.
This internal data enabled us to quantify how unrecovered vehicle losses contribute to rising premiums and to link changes in theft recovery rates to real-world pricing trends consumers face today.
How Are Thefts Trending Across Canada?
According to Équité Association’s auto theft trend report for the first half of 2025, the total number of stolen vehicles during that period was 23,094. While this is a 19.1% decrease compared to the same period in 2024, it is still nearly 3,000 more cases than the pre-national-crisis numbers of 20,313 in the first half of 2021.
Here’s how theft counts moved region by region between the first halves of 2024 and 2025:
| Region | Auto thefts, 1H 2024 | Auto thefts, 1H 2025 | Percentage change between 1H 2024 and 1H 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
| National | 28,549 | 23,094 | -19.1% |
| Ontario | 12,949 | 9,600 | -25.9% |
| Quebec | 5,000 | 3,889 | -22.2% |
| Western Canada | 9,600 | 8,695 | -9.4% |
| Alberta | 5,042 | 4,411 | -12.5% |
| Atlantic Canada | 1,000 | 910 | – 9.0% |
Overall, auto thefts in Canada declined between the two periods examined. Ontario had the highest number of cases in both periods and the largest reduction in auto thefts. Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada had the smallest reduction, though its case numbers were the fewest in both periods.
The Worrying Stagnation of Recovery Rates
Getting your car stolen and then recovered is one thing. However, when a stolen vehicle isn’t recovered, insurers generally classify it as a total loss (a write-off). That’s because they must compensate the policyholder for the vehicle’s full actual cash value rather than paying for repairs. These total-loss theft claims are significantly more expensive than cases where a car is recovered, which often involve only partial repairs or limited damage. As the volume of unrecovered, written-off vehicles increases, insurers face higher overall claim costs. Those increased losses are then reflected in future premiums most of the time, contributing to higher rates for drivers across the market.
Unfortunately, the recovery rate of stolen vehicles in Canada is still low. In the first half of 2025, the stolen-vehicle recovery rate was 56.5%, 3.4 percentage points higher than the same period the previous year. This means that if your car was stolen, there’s a 44% chance that you will not get it back.
The regional numbers show how uneven those odds are:
| Region | Stolen vehicle recovery rate, 1H 2024 | Stolen vehicle recovery rate, 1H 2025 | Change, 1H 2024 to 1H 2025 (percentage points) |
|---|---|---|---|
| National | 53.1% | 56.5% | 3.4% |
| Ontario | 44.9% | 48.6% | 3.7% |
| Quebec | 38.4% | 45.1% | 6.7% |
| Western Canada | 71.3% | 69.9% | -1.4% |
| Alberta | 69.4% | 67.6% | -1.8% |
| Atlantic Canada | 59.0% | 59.2% | 0.2% |
Among the regions reported by Équité, Quebec has the lowest stolen-vehicle recovery rate at 45.1% in the first half of 2025, but the most significant increase in recovery rates, gaining 6.7 percentage points on the previous year. While most regions improved their stolen-vehicle recovery rates, Western Canada (including Alberta) performed worse, with a lower rate than the previous year.
Recovery Rate vs. Car Insurance Inflation
Vehicle recovery rates play an important role in shaping car insurance premiums, but they are only one of several factors that influence what drivers ultimately pay.
Alberta posted a 67.6% recovery rate, yet still experienced nearly 11.9% auto insurance inflation, while Ontario’s lower 48.6% recovery rate coincided with 4.1% premium growth. Quebec followed a similar pattern, with a 45.1% recovery rate and 6.2% insurance inflation.
Even when theft volumes decline, poor recovery outcomes continue to put upward pressure on premiums. As long as a large share of stolen vehicles remains unrecovered and written off, insurers must price in those losses, affecting insurance premiums all across Canada, regardless of whether they’re directly affected by theft.
Why is the Recovery Rate More Important Than the Theft Rate?
MyChoice’s COO, Matthew Roberts, offers some clarity on this topic: “The real driver of insurance pricing is not the theft rate, but the proportion of stolen vehicles that were never recovered. Our analysis shows that when car recovery rates fall, premiums will still rise, even if theft declines. The fact that unrecovered cars affect car insurance rates more than the thefts themselves do is a reminder of the cost of organized vehicle crime, which goes far beyond the initial theft.“
Which Cars Are Most Often Stolen in Canada?
Équité also reported on the most commonly stolen car in Canada in 2024. Nationally, the most-stolen car was the Toyota RAV4, with 2,080 thefts, a theft rate of 0.38% among the 554,086 insured RAV4s. Other frequently stolen vehicles included the Dodge Ram 1500 Series, the Honda CR-V, and the Ford F-150 Series.
The body reported that newer model SUVs, such as the RAV4, may have keyless security vulnerabilities, making them prime targets for criminal networks. These SUVs also have high demand and resale value, which makes them popular targets for theft.
Vehicle theft trends also show up in insurance pricing as well. Several high-theft postal codes in Toronto, including M3J and M1B, fall within some of the city’s most expensive insurance areas, while lower-theft downtown postal codes such as M5J, M5S and M4Y are grouped among the least expensive. Theft is not the only factor affecting premiums, but the overlap suggests it contributes to the higher cost of coverage in some neighbourhoods.