What is the mandatory vehicle branding program?
The mandatory vehicle branding program is a road safety initiative that has been designed to enhance road user safety, better protect consumers in the used vehicle market, and reduce vehicle registration fraud and theft. The program, which has been voluntary in the past, is now mandatory. This program requires insurers and others (including self-insurers, auctioneers, importers, salvagers and individuals) to “brand” vehicles that are severely damaged and declared a total loss* (“write-offs”) and report those brands to the Ministry of Transportation’s Registrar of Motor Vehicles.
The mandatory vehicle branding program is a road safety initiative that has been designed to enhance road user safety, better protect consumers in the used vehicle market, and reduce vehicle registration fraud and theft. The program, which has been voluntary in the past, is now becoming a mandatory one. This program requires insurers and others (including self-insurers, auctioneers, importers, salvagers and individuals) to “brand” vehicles that are severely damaged and declared a total loss* (“write-offs”) and report those brands to the Ministry of Transportation’s Registrar of Motor Vehicles. *Link to definition of total loss *(A total loss vehicle is a vehicle that has been damaged by collision, impact, fire or flood, or has been stolen and dismantled, such that the estimated cost of repairing it exceeds the difference between the fair market value of the vehicle immediately before it was damaged or stolen and its salvage value. “Salvage value” means the value of a damaged vehicle th
