Travel Tips & Trends

Database spots totaled cars

Three million vehicles are totaled every year-written off by insurers as a total loss. Through unlicensed body shops, it is estimated as many as 30% of them are "tidied up" cosmetically and make their way back into the used car market for sale to unsuspecting buyers.

The National Insurance Crime Bureau recently created a free, searchable public database of totaled vehicles, using records supplied by insurance companies. Prospective buyers can search using the vehicle identification number (VIN), in much the same way that other databases search for a vehicle's accident history or ownership records.

To use the database, visit www.nicb.org and click on "VINcheck." The database also includes VINs of unrecovered stolen vehicles.