Samsara study: untracked equipment costs mid-size operators $18M a year

Samsara has released its 2026 State of Connected Operations Asset Theft & Loss Report, which puts the average annual cost of equipment theft and loss at $18 million for mid-size organizations that lack asset tracking, according to Insurance Business.

The study is proprietary and vendor-run. It surveyed 1,500 financial executives, most at operations with between $340 million and $1.4 billion in annual revenue. Respondents work in construction, logistics, field services, utilities and similar industries across Canada, the US, Mexico, the UK, Ireland, France and Germany.

Small equipment drives most of the loss

Heavy machinery draws the attention, but the report found that 72% of the operational cost tied to missing equipment comes from assets valued under $14,000. That includes tools, sensors, generators and specialized parts.

Among operations without asset tracking, 71% report equipment theft as a quarterly occurrence. The report says 25% of new equipment budgets go to replacing stolen or lost assets. Searching for equipment is a daily or weekly event for 98% of respondents.

Canadian results

At more than a third of Canadian organizations without real-time visibility, employees spend over 10 hours a week looking for missing equipment. That is more than 520 hours a year, or about one full-time employee for three months.

Other Canadian figures from the report:

• 82% said a missing critical asset caused a significant shutdown or delay in the past 12 months.
• 39% have paid for emergency rentals to keep projects moving.
• Without tracking, the average time to locate a missing asset is 25 days.
• 68% cannot recover even half of their stolen high-value equipment, against a 54% global average.

Among Canadian organizations that have adopted asset tracking, 35% say they lowered insurance premiums and 66% report fewer project shutdowns and delays.

Insurers are raising expectations

Insurance Business ties the findings to tighter underwriting. Maria-Christina Sorbo-Mayrand, an associate at Miller Thomson, told the Private Motor Truck Council of Canada's 2026 conference that insurers are no longer satisfied by the mere presence of telematics or tracking. They increasingly expect carriers to show active, documented use of the data. Some insurers now ask for multiple years of telematics data at renewal, and firms with strong safety records and consistent risk management are more likely to get favorable pricing.

The backdrop is a known theft problem. Northbridge Insurance estimated construction theft in Canada at $46 million in 2024. The Insurance Bureau of Canada puts the cost of cargo theft to the Canadian economy at about $5 billion a year.

John Chaccour, director of technology at Total Safety, said a single missing item could delay a job, idle a crew and force emergency purchasing. He said the company expects a 100% reduction in unreturned assets and a 90% reduction in days outstanding with real-time asset visibility.