Carproof vehicle data provider gets new name in Canada

Data provider Carproof Corp. is now known as Carfax Canada, parent firm IHS Markit Ltd. announced Thursday.

Carfax – whose target market includes the auto insurance industry – collects data on vehicles so prospective buyers can find out whether they have been damaged or deemed a total loss.

The vehicle history reports are based on more than 19 billion records collected from more than 110,000 data sources, London, England-based IHS said earlier this year in its annual report for 2017.

Carfax Canada will continue to provide the same history and valuation information on vehicles that it had been providing under the Carproof brand.

In Canada, replacing the Carproof brand with Carfax brand “better positions us to provide enhanced products and services to Canadians in the future, building on our extensive history of helping people make informed decisions about used cars,” Shawn Vording, vice president of automotive sales at CARFAX Canada, said Thursday.

For vehicles registered in B.C., Carfax Canada lets customers get reports that include Insurance Corporation of British Columbia claims data.

The Carfax database could potentially help consumers figure out whether a vehicle they are thinking of buying had its vehicle identification number cloned, Peel Regional Police officer Matt Pelissier told Canadian Underwriter earlier.

Vehicle identification number cloning – which can increase insurance claims costs – happens when a criminal sells a vehicle and replaces the proper VIN plates with VIN plates from wrecked vehicles. A VIN is a series of 17 letters and numbers that identifies individual vehicles in North America and is placed on the dashboard and other areas of those vehicles.

In Canada, Carfax says it provides data from the Canadian Police Information Centre if the vehicle is marked as stolen.

In Ontario, the vehicle registration database is intended to flag vehicles are “irreparable” or “salvage” if they have been declared at total loss.