Ontario's tow truck turf wars are exposing a growing vulnerability for the auto insurance market, with police and industry investigators warning that staged collisions linked to organized crime are becoming a significant fraud exposure.
While violence in the towing sector has attracted most of the headlines in recent years, documents from Peel Regional Police’s Project Outsource investigation point to what could be a major revenue stream behind some of that activity: insurance claims.
According to a report from CTV News, court filings in the case list more than 50 charges, including firearms offenses, extortion and participation in a criminal organization. Among them are 15 counts of defrauding insurance companies, with 10 carriers named as alleged victims in what police describe as the “Dhami Criminal Organization.”
None of the allegations have been proven in court.
Staged collisions range from low‑speed “crash for cash” events to more elaborate schemes involving professional drivers who deliberately cause accidents, then swap places with another person who later claims injury and loss of income.
“It can involve the tow companies, the medical facilities, the paralegals, the body shops, the car rental companies, all working together. And it all starts with a tow,” said Bryan Gast, vice president of investigative services at Équité Association, which investigates insurance crime on behalf of member carriers.
Individual claims in these schemes can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars once vehicle damage, medical treatment, attendant care, rehabilitation services and income‑replacement benefits are factored in. When replicated across dozens of files and multiple insurers, the impact on loss ratios and pricing can be significant.
In Project Outsource, Peel police alleged that a network tied to the towing industry used threats and violence to control tow territory, then steered vehicles into preferred shops and service providers, inflating or fabricating losses. Police say they have recovered about $4.2 million in assets from the network, including tow trucks, vehicles, cash and weapons.
The enforcement landscape is also shifting. Recent national data showed a meaningful decline in auto theft following targeted task forces and joint operations. Équité’s latest figures indicated private passenger vehicle thefts fell around 18% between 2024 and 2025.
At the same time, insurers are reporting a sharp increase in suspected staged collisions. Aviva Canada has said the number of such cases it identified in 2025 was up nearly 400% compared with the year before, suggesting that some criminal groups may be pivoting from theft and export to claims‑driven fraud.
“I think it just tells you that the money is there to be made,” said Aviva senior fraud leader Mike Cardillo. “One of the challenges that we’re facing is that they’re getting very sophisticated.”
For carriers, the trend raises questions about whether traditional fraud‑screening methods at first notice of loss and within individual claims teams are enough, or whether more emphasis needs to be placed on network analysis that can link tow operators, clinics, law firms and rental companies across files and across insurers.
Ontario’s “take all comers” rule requires standard‑market auto insurers to offer coverage to any eligible driver who meets their filed underwriting criteria. Carriers cannot simply refuse to write or renew business based on suspicion alone; they must rely on approved rules and, where necessary, non‑renewal or cancellation processes grounded in demonstrable risk factors.
Some insurers, including Aviva, argue that this framework can limit their ability to cut off individuals and entities they believe are repeatedly involved in organized fraud, forcing them instead to rely on pricing, tighter coverage terms or movement into the residual market.
Regulators, led by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA), have pushed back on calls for broad blacklisting powers, citing due‑process concerns and the risk of unfair discrimination if coverage is denied without a conviction or clear evidence that fits within approved underwriting rules. The result is a continuing debate over how to reconcile open access to mandatory auto coverage with the need to avoid becoming, in effect, an involuntary funding source for criminal activity.
For now, that tension means insurers are expected to keep writing many high‑risk accounts while using more sophisticated fraud controls and underwriting segmentation to manage exposure.
Industry groups see shared data and analytics as one of the main tools available within the current regulatory framework, according to the report.
Gast said Équité’s role is to provide a cross‑carrier view that individual insurers cannot easily achieve on their own.
“We’re able to see if that individual has left one insurer to the other insurer, and used the same bad actors in one collision, and another collision,” he said.
That kind of linkage analysis can flag recurring patterns – for example, the same tow operator and clinic appearing on multiple injury claims across different companies – and support targeted investigations, joint civil actions or referrals to law enforcement.
With auto theft trends improving but staged‑collision allegations mounting, Ontario’s tow‑linked investigations suggest fraud risk in the province’s auto line is evolving rather than receding – and that carriers will need to keep adjusting both their technical pricing and their control frameworks in response.
