Police Vehicle Theft Reports – A Lack Of Understanding And Standardisation

The police handling a report of crime over the phone is practical for many reasons. Popping the VRM on the PNC LoS is necessary and … that is pretty much it (please do not mention ANPR) unless there are obvious indicators that all is not as presented.

But even if there are discrepancies or concerns apparent, do the police have time to address these, to iron out the wrinkles … who will thank them for doing so? Fraud may be at play, and this is complex, time-consuming, distracting …

Insurer or Loss Adjuster to the rescue! Well, not quite; they do not don cape or underwear over spandex tights (and I trust those who know me are not now struggling to get an image out of their head). But they do ask questions, quite a lot of them because they have many facets of the loss to consider – you will get a good idea of the areas covered at www.cmaclaims.co.uk/help .

These facets of a claim are interwoven; collated & compared enabling ‘Green-Lighting’ of most. Not all discovered is relevant to the police, much could be. A discretionary approach is adopted.

Loss circumstances are, of course, an important area of an insurers consideration. Even here constabularies are not troubled with the annoying ‘is the car reported stolen?’ approaches. We determine this without annoying police staff … and do more with data as insurers are aware!

This could be a lengthy article detailing all the ways to assist and how current procedures require review. A challenge to try and tackle another day, but for now, a few thoughts … the potential to make a positive difference:

CONSIDER:

a)    Standardise vehicle theft questioning nationwide. Ideally, use a common platform/database – a tad long-term maybe?  In the interim, devise pertinent, probing questioning. We are happy to help.

b)    Run some simple analysis on a VRM – this will help:

c)     ‘Score’ (profile) reports to determine which warrants further attention.  We do this, we can assist.

d)    If a vehicle is found before, or shortly after, the report of ‘theft’, ask yourselves ‘why?’, more so if:

e)    a vehicle is found crashed/damaged?  ‘Professional’ (in it for profit) criminals gain nothing if they damage & ditch the proceeds of their crime

f)     Do not be quick to jump to ‘it was keyless theft’ … think!

g)    Conclude your questioning with something like ‘do you consent to us providing a copy of this report to your insurer if they should seek it?’ Be kind to your disclosure departments and your potential revenue stream!

h)    Reword your letters to victims – be imaginative.  No one likes to hear the police have closed a crime within minutes/hours because … ‘crooks are professional, organised and the police … nothing we can do!’

And, regarding the PNC LoS register, please, ask yourselves whether:

i)      the 6-week weeding of stolen reports is relevant, necessary or does more harm than good?  Time to stop this labour-intensive weeding process?

j)      The 6-year weeding process is damaging.  Is it necessary, or beneficial? Would ceasing the process cause an issue?

Did you know … an analysis of vehicle thefts (admittedly 20+ years ago) found that 20% to 30% of reported thefts were tainted by fraud?

• How many of your vehicle theft allegations are currently considered compromised or corrupted?

Do you know? Can you tell?

Why would the instance of fraud be less now? Imagine the effect identifying the spurious allegations could have on crime statistics!

For those who are not pulling the wool over the eyes of the police (to gain the perceived ‘golden ticket’ crime number for similarly trying to dupe an insurer), how do you think victims perceive the failure to disclose police reports to insurers or their representatives?

In cases of theft, if the stolen vehicle has not been recovered in its original condition, who is responsible for compensating the victim; why not expedite this process?

I urge police staff of any rank or role: if you believe more needs to be done about vehicle theft and think I or my team can help, please contact me. As a recent article in Policing Insight rightly stated, “To solve the complex puzzles of modern crime, investigators need to work together seamlessly.”

Today the police, tomorrow …. DVLA, Finance Companies, Manufacturers, Tracking companies …