Our Services
Break & Enter Investigations
Break and Entry is defined as “finding a way to enter a house and entering it with the intent to commit a crime”, or, ”the gaining of unauthorized access to a building with intent to commit a crime”, typically theft. Our experience indicates that often it is not an intruder that broke and entered into a residence, or business, to commit a crime but rather the home/business owner. There are numerous motives that would push an individual to orchestrate a break and entry on his own property; the main reason being that the claimant attempts to claim a benefit which he/she is not entitled to-insurance fraud. In other words, B&E are staged in order to claim household items on their insurance.
When after interviewing the claimant, the adjuster sees red flags, and believes that there are suspicions of fraud, he/she and/or the SIU contacts Origin and Cause to investigate and to provide an independent engineering opinion whether the facts outlined by the insured are in line with the available site condition and the available evidence. Although some fraudulent claims are made with a high level of sophistication, the majority of the orchestrated B&E is poorly done.
We commence our investigations by collecting as much background information as possible including but not limited to the following:
- Circumstances of the event (i.e., was the B&E occurring during daylight, or during the night, where was the intruder entering the premises, through the front door, patio door, garage door, window, was there any alarm system in place, can it be examined, was there any surveillance camera existing and operating at the time of the B&E and can the footage be examined, what items were stolen, did the neighbors noticed anything, is there any police report that can be reviewed, are there any photographs of the scene taken after the B&E was discovered, is there any list, or photographs with the household items stolen)
- We ask to be provided with any other background information that could assist further in our investigations.
- We attend the site and document it thoroughly; we examine and document the garage, doors and windows for evidence of forceful entry, we examine and document the garage, doors and the windows locking mechanism for the same, we examine and document the outside walls to see whether there is evidence of staining.
- Often times, the insured is not present during our site examination however, if he/she is present we request permission to ask him/her to share with us their side of the story.
- It is not a general rule however, in the majority of the B&E investigations that we participated in, the alleged intruder “entered” the premises either through the front main entrance, or through the patio door. And in all instances the damage to the doors/windows was on the inner side and not on the outside. This condition indicates to us that the “intruder” “entered” into the house from the inside. In other words, the events as described by the home/business owner do not make sense and the evidence clearly points to the conclusion that the claim submitted was not true to reality.
If you have a question regarding an insurance claim, or an investigation, feel free to contact us for a free, no obligation, initial consultation and we will be happy to assist you as best as we can.
Types of investigation
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