Car Theft Rates in the 380 Biggest Cities

The National Insurance Crime Bureau's annual “Hot Spots” report finds that car thefts are rising again after an eight-year decline.

Modesto, Calif., racked up the nation's worst theft rate and recorded more than 4,200 thefts last year. Youngstown, Ohio, with a similar population, had just 910. Among the 25 largest U.S. cities, the differences are striking. Your car is eight times more likely to be stolen in San Francisco than in Pittsburgh.

In Los Angeles alone, a staggering 52,000 cars were snatched in 2012.per

We're including each city's rank among all 380 metro areas and the local theft trend since 2010.

Unless you've bought comprehensive insurance, you are not insured against theft.

The most popular theft targets tend to be mid-1990s Japanese cars, which are old enough that most owners are unlikely to keep them insured for anything other than mandatory liability coverage. (See “Is it time to drop comp and collision?”)

Source: National Insurance Crime Bureau; U.S. Census *Theft rate per 100,000 population

The original article can be found at CarInsurance.com:Auto theft rates in the 380 biggest cities