News in 2017

It seems hard to believe but National Motor Vehicle Title Information System (NMVTIS) reporting will have been a federal requirement for salvage businesses for eight years in April of 2017. Millions of vehicles have been reported as salvage through auctions and other salvage businesses, and many states are now using NMVTIS as a reference to verify the salvage history of a vehicle before issuing a new title.

Because states use NMVTIS as a reference tool, occasionally auctions and businesses encounter title issues on vehicles that have been sold, or that they plan to sell, because of a salvage record in NMVTIS. It seems that many people’s first reaction to finding out a vehicle has a salvage history is that it must be an error. While salvage reports made in error are a possibility, it is more likely that the salvage record in NMVTIS is accurate, and the party holding the title is simply not aware of the salvage history. For this reason, it is very important for businesses to report information on the vehicles they handle to NMVTIS correctly, because an incorrect report can have consequences that are very time consuming to fix and will involve dealing with irate individuals, as the correction process isn’t instant.

When a party learns that there is a salvage record in NMVTIS for a vehicle they are dealing with, a NMVTIS report will also include contact information for the business that submitted the salvage report. Often requests for corrections and changes go to the NMVTIS vehicle history report provider that supplied the title check, then the data consolidators who provide upload services to the insurance and salvage industries, neither of which can correct the report independently. It is important to note that only the business that made the original NMVTIS salvage report can change, amend, update or correct a salvage report if one is necessary. Please also note that if a business submitted the salvage report through one consolidator but is no longer a customer of that consolidator, the business will need to work with their original consolidator, through which the initial report was made, to submit corrections. The database administrators will not make corrections independent of the original reporting business and consolidator. Because of this, corrections to NMVTIS can be time consuming, which is why we emphasize the importance of reporting correctly up front, since problems can show up sometime later…in many instances, several years later, and are much harder to chase down.

If you or your business are questioned about reporting a vehicle to NMVTIS in error, please don’t instantly assume that you made a mistake. It is far more common that the person raising the complaint doesn’t understand salvage titling rules, salvage vehicle definitions or is not aware of the vehicle’s actual salvage history. The most common issue is that an individual won’t discover title brands or salvage history until they attempt to re-title or sell a vehicle. As we all know, even if the vehicle “looks” fine, it does not mean that the vehicle does not have a salvage past. This kind of transparency is what NMVTIS is supposed to provide, protecting the consumer.

It’s also possible that a complaint is raised about a vehicle that has been “cloned” (when someone has used the VIN, or title paperwork from one vehicle to register or title another vehicle). In these cases, the only way to determine which is the correct vehicle is to have a detailed inspection done on the vehicles in question to ascertain the “hidden” VINs on the vehicle that matches the paperwork.

To summarize, if your business is asked to change a salvage report made to NMVTIS, please first confirm that the vehicle in question has been verified (all VINs physically checked) by the person requesting the correction, then check your records to see if there could have been an error in the reporting. If there is something that needs to be corrected, the original report to NMVTIS will have to be “amended” through the data consolidator who was used to submit the initial report. The amendment in NMVTIS will be visible in the NMVTIS database quickly, but it can take several weeks before the amendment is updated across all the different state databases and private reports that may pull in NMVTIS data. The important thing is to report correctly and to please make sure that all the physical vehicle VINs and the paperwork match…it is really scary how many “cloned” vehicles are out there, generating lots of future corrections and headaches.

If you have questions about NMVTIS reporting, email ADD or call one of our friendly and knowledgeable customer service representatives at 855-300-3455 . Se habla español.