Burglary Recovery: What To Do in the First 24 Hours

Coming home to a broken door, scattered drawers, and the absence of things that should still be there is one of the worst experiences in adult life. The shock makes clear thinking hard, and the wrong order of actions can hurt your insurance claim or destroy useful evidence. This is the practical first-24-hours guide, written by a locksmith who attends 30-40 of these jobs a year.

If you arrive home and find a door forced or windows broken, don't enter the property alone. Stay outside. Call 999 if there's any chance someone is still inside (recent forced door, lights on you didn't leave on, sounds from the property). Call 101 if the entry is clearly old — overnight, while you were away. Wait outside until police arrive. If you must enter (children inside, pets), make as much noise as possible going in so anyone there has time to leave.

Resist the urge to clean. The disturbed scene contains evidence — fingerprints, footprints, fibres, tool marks on doors and windows. Police forensics (SOCO) work the scene in the first 4-6 hours after report. Walking through the property, picking things up, even washing dishes can destroy useful evidence. Photograph everything before anyone touches anything; the photos are also useful for the insurance claim. Make a list of what you can see is missing.

When police attend or you report via 101, you'll get a crime reference number. Write it down immediately — phone notes, scrap of paper, anything. Your insurer will need it for the claim, and you'll need to quote it on every subsequent contact. Without a crime reference number, most insurers won't process a theft claim.

Once police have attended, call your home insurance claims line. They'll log the claim, send out an assessor (sometimes in person, often via app-based remote assessment), and authorise emergency security repairs. Most insurers cover emergency boarding-up, lock replacement, and frame repairs as part of the standard policy — usually no excess applied to security work. Get the claim reference number and ask whether emergency security work needs prior authorisation or just an invoice.

Don't sleep in a property with broken locks or boards-on instead of glass. Call a local locksmith (real local landline, not 0800) and ask for emergency same-day securing. Typical response in Suffolk and North Essex is 30-60 minutes for a forced-door call. We bring boarding for broken windows, replacement cylinders for snapped front doors, and reinforced strike plates for damaged frames. Get a written invoice for the insurer.

Emergency securing in priority order: replace any compromised cylinders (front door is the priority, even if the back was the entry point — burglars often return via the front), board over any broken windows with weatherproof ply, repair or reinforce damaged frames, fit reinforced strike plates if frame damage doesn't allow full repair on the spot. Full replacement glazing is usually arranged for the next morning by a specialist glazier. Lock changes on every external door are recommended even if only one was forced — assume the burglar saw your other keys.

Many insurers require a written security upgrade certificate after a break-in claim — a document from a qualified locksmith listing every lock fitted, the standard it meets (BS3621, TS007 3-star), the date of fitting, and the engineer's name and qualifications. This is usually required before the insurer pays out and can affect future renewal terms. Ask your locksmith for this certificate at the time of work; reputable firms provide it free.

Things to do in the first 24 hours after the immediate securing: contact your bank if any cards or chequebooks are missing (freeze accounts), contact your phone provider if a phone is missing (block IMEI), check if any digital devices are missing and remote-wipe them, change passwords for any accounts that may have been on a stolen device, file a list of stolen items with serial numbers to police via the immobilise.com service. Within a week: review your policy for any security upgrades that would qualify for premium discount; this is a good moment to upgrade everything to current standards.