Repossession Violence Statistics 2000-2024

The Numbers No One Wants to Talk About

It has been a long-held belief within the repossession industry that discussing or broadcasting incidents of violence that occur is not good for business. So much so, that the actual number of agents murdered in the industries more than one-hundred years of history will never truly be known. Despite these feelings, I feel that some accounting is deserved for both those victims of the past and those of the present.

But before we dig into the data, I’d like to explain why I am doing this.

The Pros and the Cons

Embroiled in the arguments of whether or not violent incidents should be reported are several arguments. While I may not agree with them, they do have some valid points against:

Reputation – No one wants to be publicized for having a violent incident occur by, or against one of their employees. It’s looked at like an STD to some.
Insurance – It is feared by some that any recognition of statistics on repo violence could be used as a reason to raise already ridiculously high insurance rates.
Public Perception – No one wants to see a return of the show “operation repo” and no one wants the public to perceive that assaulting agents or agents assaulting borrowers is in any way normal. Some fear that reporting these stories can create this dangerous perception.
Hiring/Retention – Fear of injury or facing dangerous confrontations is an obstacle to hiring and keeping employees. I’ve faced numerous complaints over the past more than a decade for this exact reason.

On the counter-point, I would argue the following:

Accountability – There is no question that the repossession industry can be dangerous. Knowing that, isn’t it also important to know just how dangerous?
Safety – No one, at anytime, in the field, on the lot or in the office, should every forget how, in just a split second, the most monotonous of moments can turn deadly. Lives are at stake here.
Respect – In the name of God and the people injured and killed in this line of work, don’t they deserve to be recognized and appreciated for their sacrifices? In what sad world do we just pretend it never happened?
Critical Education – While knowledge does not shield agents from the dangers inflicted by the public, it does provide important teaching points. Points that can help agents avoid making wrong turns, recognizing how quickly things can go bad and most importantly knowing when to just back off.

These points can be argued with valid points by all sides, but it is not deterring me from proceeding with providing my findings. To anyone opposed, I apologize, but I think you may see it differently when you see what I have found.

The Data

I had contemplated compiling this data for years but was always dissuaded from it by the naysayers. Regardless, Dave Branch at Repo Buzz had suggested it a couple of years ago and agreed and began to do so. After looking up a couple of years’ worth of stories, I found it very time consuming and abandoned it.

Then, last month, my old friend Max Piniero of Elite Collateral recovery was appointed to the Florida Private Investigation, Recovery, and Security Advisory Council and asked if I had this data. I advised that it was incomplete but I would see what I could do.

Then, not two days later, I get a call from Wade Argo, of Argo Management Group in Illinois and former AFA President called me asking for the same for legislative presentation. The need was definitely there, so I dug back in.

Gathering meaningful data in the repossession world can be like trying to nail Jello to a wall. What I have assembled is based solely on stories reported in CURepossession over the years 2000-2005. It is by no means as comprehensive as anyone would want. But then again, what data in the repossession industry is?

With no further adieu, I present my findings.

Five Years of Living Dangerously

In order to break down violence in the industry, I had to break it down into three major categories and in this order of critical importance:

Murders
Agent Injuries
Damaged Trucks

In addition, I broke down the types of violence by types:

Guns
Knives
Vehicles
Club/Bat
Other ( includes everything from fists to pepper spray and anything thrown or used to injure or cause damage.)

Repossession Violence Statistics 2000-2024 — Click on any image to enlarge

It should come as little surprise that the year 2023 was the most deadly and violent year in the known history of the repossession industry. It was preceded by two years of growing violence that appears to have emerged with the growth of repossession assignments that had been largely subdued by the pandemic moratoriums and repo reluctance of the year 2020.

Regardless, adding the 2019 data, we can see that although I reported less incidents, the violence was still ever present.

Most Dangerous States for Gun Violence

Whether its because gun violence gets the most attention from the press or otherwise, it is without a doubt the most volatile of violent incidents an agent can face. While not all incidents involving guns turn deadly or cause serious injury, they are nevertheless, the most dangerous situations agents in the field can face.

As you look at this chart, remember this; according to RDN, in 2024, the five states with the highest repossession volumes were:

Texas – 391K
Florida – 264K
California – 258K
Georgia 152K
Ohio – 103K

Considering these volumes, the fact that the number of violent incidents in the same states almost correspond to the volume, it should surprise no one. Strange enough though, of the next five, only Michigan and Illinois violence levels ranked in the top ten. Regardless, these numbers appear small for a five-year period.

Unfortunately, in many gun related incidents involving repossessions, agents do get injured. For the purpose of reporting, I included borrower threats with guns where no shots were fired and no one was injured. They were dangerous all the same.

While Texas may lead the way, the rest of the list seems a little all over the place. If not for the generally low numbers, it might be seen with greater concern than it may warrant.

As far as murders by state go, fortunately, the numbers tend to be small, but over the past five years, Texas again leads the way. Of the twelve states represented in this morbid category, other than Texas, only California and Illinois showed more than one over this period.

Most Dangerous Cities

With over 195 reported violent incidents over a five-year window, there are over eighty cities where at least one violent incident has occurred during a repossession that I have reported. In seventy-one of these, I have only one recorded event. Rather than showing all of them, I have created a cutoff of two incidents.

Once again, Texas shows a large representation in this where of the thirteen cities where injuries have occurred during a repossession in the past five years, four were in Texas.

In the history of the industry, agents were murdered in a known total of 45 different cities. Only five had been in the same cities and on two of those incidents, two were killed during the same event. The rate of reoccurrence is actually rather small if we had the assignment volumes by city held up against them.

With about 20,000 cities in the country, that is a violent incident rate rate of 0.425% per city over a one hundred-year period.

Once again, of note, Texas is represented by two cities. As the histoprical birthplace of the professional repossession industry, Detroit’s presence as number two should be of no surprise. It was also number two for top 12 cities for gun violence incidents.

It’s Worse than This, I Know It

There are almost 20,000 cities, towns and villages in the United States. Most have their own police departments or are served by local sheriff’s departments or state police. Most major cities have a local press and some have several while some have none.

Wherever in these cities a violent crime is committed, if it is reported to the police, it may end up online on a police blotter. If the local press follows this or follows up on police reports, they may find stories that they will report. Many will not.

Estimates vary, but it’s estimated that between 50%-65% of all violent crimes go unreported by the press in general.

Applying that rationale to the previous data, other than the murders, which as of the last fifteen years we can be fairly certain we have captured all of, it is I believe more than safe to believe that the numbers I have presented are perhaps 50% of the reality.

Adding to this gap of information is the difficulties the press has in differentiating between a repossession and a tow. I would estimate this to be about an additional 20% variance undercutting the true numbers.

So, the actual numbers may be anywhere from 60%-70% higher than what I report.

Making Sense of This

I would hope that you all see this as I do. These are still remarkably small numbers for the large number of repossessions attempted by year. In example; in the worst year for murders, 2023, there were 8,888,889 repossession assignments according to the RDN data. If there were 7 deaths the same year, the fatality rate would be 0.00000787%. That’s less than 1 death per million assignments.

I know that’s still too many, but I can’t help remembering something the late Kevin Flynn, founder of Renovo (now Primeritus) said back in a 2012 in the Huffington Post article that many of us were quoted in. “You do something two million times, the one-in-a-million thing is going to happen twice. All the prudence in the world isn’t going to stop that. If we were talking about pizza delivery men, the danger is significantly greater.”

I know that sounds as callous now as it did then. But there is perhaps some inkling of truth to it. All things considered, the nature of the industry, it could be much worse off if the true and professional repossession industry weren’t so aware of it and people took greater caution.

Is there a better way to keep track of this? No. You could never find it all on your own and you could never get this industry of at least 1,700 different companies (performing at least 10 repossessions a year per the 2024 RDN data) to report anything. So a centralized data process is out of the question.

I just don’t at this point see any way to track any of this is any manner any less crude than monitoring the internet for repossession related stories.

I hope that this data provides some level of insight for the industry to help understand the frequency, severity and regions where repossession violence has occurred in the past. I also pray that everyone takes from it an extra ounce of caution in all of their related activities, be they in the field, the lot or the office.

When it comes to protecting ourselves, our families and our employees, one injury is always too many.

Stay safe,

Kevin Armstrong

Publisher