The Repossession Industry’s Missing Asset: Institutional Memory

Why It May Be Time for the Industry to Start Measuring Itself

EDITORIAL

During the pandemic, while researching what eventually became Repo Blood: A Century of Auto Repossession History, I stumbled upon an uncomfortable realization.

Much of the industry’s history was disappearing.

Stories that once seemed important enough to be discussed at conferences, debated in association meetings, and passed from one generation of recovery professionals to the next were quietly fading away. Companies had closed. Owners had retired. Records had been discarded. Lessons learned through decades of experience were vanishing with the people who carried them.

That realization eventually led to several projects.

Repo Blood was one effort to preserve our industry’s history. Fallen Agents Day was another. Not because the industry lacked compassion or respect for those who came before us, but because there was no organized effort to ensure their stories would be remembered by future generations.

Today, I believe we face a similar challenge.

The repossession industry has associations, conferences, certification programs, software platforms, vendors, consultants, lobbyists, and media outlets. Yet for all the progress, the industry still lacks one critical asset that nearly every mature industry possesses:

Institutional memory.

A Century in the Shadows

The repossession industry has operated largely in the shadows for more than a century.

That isn’t necessarily because anyone wanted it that way. It is simply the nature of what it does. Recovery work occurs behind the scenes. Success is often measured by what doesn’t happen. The industry’s most important function is helping maintain the integrity of the lending system, yet most consumers rarely think about repossession until it directly affects them.

The result is that very little about the industry is systematically documented.

Ask a room full of recovery agency owners whether recovery rates are harder today than they were ten years ago and you’ll hear strong opinions.

Ask whether insurance costs have increased faster than revenues over the last decade and you’ll hear even stronger opinions.

Ask whether staffing shortages are worse than they were five years ago, whether violence against agents is increasing, or whether profitability has improved or declined.

Everyone has an answer.

Few have data.

The reality is that much of the industry’s collective knowledge exists only in conversations, memories, and personal experiences. When a veteran owner retires, decades of practical knowledge often retire with them. When an agency closes, valuable historical perspective can disappear overnight.

The Brief Glimpse We Had

Not long ago, the industry briefly received a glimpse of what real institutional data could look like.

For several quarters, RDN provided national repossession volume reports that were published through CURepossession. For the first time, the industry had access to actual recovery volume trends derived from one of the nation’s largest assignment management platforms.

The response was immediate.

Recovery agencies paid attention.

Lenders paid attention.

Economists paid attention.

Industry observers around the world paid attention.

What many found particularly interesting was how dramatically the RDN data differed from the estimates that had long been relied upon by the industry.

For years, much of the public discussion surrounding repossession volume was based upon indirect estimates derived from auction activity, credit bureau information, and other secondary indicators. Those models served a purpose, but they were ultimately approximations.

The RDN reports were different. They reflected actual repossession activity flowing through one of the industry’s largest platforms.

The numbers suggested that many commonly cited estimates significantly understated the true volume of recoveries occurring nationwide.

In short, the industry was finally beginning to see itself more clearly.

Then the reports stopped.

While the reasons were never fully explained publicly, many in the industry believe lender concerns played a role. The increased visibility generated questions, scrutiny, and discussions that they preferred to avoid.

Whether those assumptions are correct or not, the result was the same.

One of the few sources of meaningful repossession volume data disappeared.

And with it, another opportunity to build institutional memory.

Why Data Matters

The loss of those reports was bigger than most people realize.

Researchers lost visibility.

Economists lost visibility.

Policymakers lost visibility.

Recovery agencies lost visibility.

Even lenders lost an opportunity to better understand broader market trends.

More importantly, the industry lost a chance to establish a factual baseline.

No mature industry benefits from operating in darkness.

When data is unavailable, assumptions fill the void. When historical records are absent, myths replace facts.

When trends are not measured, decisions become driven by anecdotes rather than evidence.

The trucking industry tracks freight activity.

Banks track lending trends.

Credit unions track delinquency performance.

Automobile dealers track vehicle sales.

Economists study business cycles because someone took the time to collect information year after year. The repossession industry rarely does.

As a result, every downturn feels unprecedented. Every staffing shortage feels unique. Every legislative challenge feels like unfamiliar territory. Perhaps some of them are.

But perhaps many of them are not.

Without historical benchmarks, we simply don’t know.

Building a Memory

Imagine if recovery agencies could look back ten years and see how assignment volumes changed over time. Imagine understanding how insurance costs evolved through different economic cycles.

Imagine tracking recovery rates, staffing challenges, compliance costs, violence against agents, profitability, and business outlook over decades rather than relying on memories and assumptions.

Imagine being able to measure change instead of simply discussing it.

That is why I have increasingly come to believe that one of the industry’s greatest unmet needs is not another conference, another certification program, or another technology platform.

It is a reliable way to measure itself.

Not to expose proprietary information. Not to reveal lender strategies. Not to identify individual agencies.

Simply to preserve knowledge.

Anonymous industry benchmarking, annual surveys, safety reporting initiatives, and long-term trend analysis all serve the same purpose.

They create a record. A memory.

A Call to Action

For generations, recovery professionals have built businesses, adapted to changing laws, embraced new technologies, survived economic downturns, and performed one of the most difficult jobs in the financial services ecosystem.

Those experiences matter.

The lessons learned matter.

The data matters.

And if we fail to capture them, future generations will be forced to relearn many of those lessons all over again.

The good news is that this challenge can be addressed. Industry benchmarking programs, historical archives, oral histories, and annual research initiatives can all help preserve what previous generations built.

Institutional memory is not created in a year.

It is built one story, one survey, one statistic, and one generation at a time. The repossession industry has spent more than a century documenting transactions.

Perhaps it is finally time it began documenting itself.

Because industries that remember their past are far better prepared for their future.

And after more than a century operating in the shadows, perhaps it is finally time for the repossession industry to step into the light.

Kevin Armstrong

Publisher