According to a report today from the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), in 2014, a total of 12,630 metal theft claims were processed. That number dropped by 23 percent to 9,699 in 2015 and dropped even more 47 percent in 2016 to 5,103. Compared with 2014, insured metal thefts were down a whopping 60 percent in 2016. During this three-year period, 28,040 insurance claims for the theft of copper, bronze, brass or aluminum were handled 27,450 of them (98 percent) involving copper. When copper theft claims frequency is compared to the monthly average price of copper, there is a statistically-significant correlation between the two.