Cargo theft is becoming harder to ignore, and in some cases, harder to even measure.
A recent report from TruckNews found that trailer theft in Canada nearly doubled in 2025, while industry experts warned that cargo losses are still widely underreported. In many cases, stolen trailers are never recovered, and the true financial impact never makes it into official statistics. That combination of rising theft and incomplete reporting is creating a blind spot for fleets, insurers, and law enforcement alike.
When a trailer goes missing, there is often very little evidence to explain what actually happened. That lack of clarity is becoming a bigger problem as cargo theft grows more organized and more opportunistic.
Why Trailers Are the Soft Target
Modern tractors and trucks are increasingly connected. GPS, telematics, engine data, and driver information are now standard across much of the industry through telematics fleet management systems. This gives fleets a fairly clear picture of where powered equipment is and how it is being used.
Trailers are different. Many still operate with minimal tracking or none at all. When one disappears from a yard, truck stop, or drop location, fleets are often left with little more than a last-known timestamp and a rough location estimate. That lack of visibility slows investigations, complicates insurance claims, and makes recovery far less likely.
Insurance and risk professionals consistently point to this gap as one reason trailer theft remains attractive to organized theft groups.
What Insurers Actually Care About After a Theft
In conversations with insurance professionals like Gabe Monger, a consistent theme comes up. Insurance outcomes depend heavily on documentation.
After a theft, insurers and investigators are trying to reconstruct what happened as accurately as possible. They look for details like where the trailer was last seen, when it was accessed or moved, what vehicles were involved, and whether there are any identifying details tied to the people or equipment involved. A clear, defensible timeline matters more than assumptions or secondhand reports.
When that information is missing, claims take longer to resolve. Disputes are more likely, and recovery rates drop. This lines up with broader insurance-industry reporting from publications such as Transport Topics. Which have noted that insurers increasingly encourage fleet telematics by adopting technologies that improve visibility, documentation, and post-incident verification as cargo theft continues to rise.
Cameras Change the Math When Tracking Is Limited
Regulatory agencies like the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) rarely prescribe specific theft-prevention tools. Their focus is accountability, traceability, and verifiable evidence. Those themes show up repeatedly across federal safety guidance and insurance risk discussions.
When safe fleet cameras are present on or around trailers, they can provide the type of information investigators need when other systems fall short. That can include license plates of vehicles entering a yard, physical descriptions of people accessing equipment, time-stamped footage tied to a location, and visual context around how and when a trailer was taken.
Insurance organizations such as the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) have long emphasized that better documentation improves the ability to identify organized theft patterns and support law enforcement investigations. Cameras do not just help after a theft either. Their visible presence is widely recognized by insurers and security professionals as a deterrent, particularly for crimes of opportunity.
Deterrence Is Not a Guarantee, but It Shifts the Risk
No single tool eliminates cargo theft entirely, and insurers are realistic about that. What matters is how risk shifts when theft becomes harder, riskier, and more traceable.
Layered security changes decision-making for criminals. When equipment is harder to access quietly and easier to identify afterward, theft groups tend to move on to easier targets. From an insurance perspective, that shift matters because it reduces uncertainty and improves post-loss outcomes.
As Gabe Monger has explained in discussions with fleets, cameras help move claims from speculation to facts. Instead of guessing what happened, insurers can evaluate real evidence. That speeds up decisions, reduces disputes, and strengthens a fleet’s overall risk profile.
Visibility Is Becoming a Baseline Expectation
The surge in trailer theft reported by TruckNews is not just a Canadian issue. It reflects a broader North American trend where cargo crime is evolving faster than traditional protections.
For fleets, the takeaway is straightforward. When trailers are untracked, visibility has to come from somewhere else. Cameras provide documentation when other systems fall short, and that documentation increasingly influences insurance outcomes, investigations, and long-term risk.
In an environment where trailers can disappear overnight, proof is no longer optional. It is becoming part of how fleets protect their cargo, their claims history, and their future insurability.
