The door is fixed. The money is in a queue
At 3am your engineer attends a forced back door. They make the door secure for the night, return next day to replace the damaged mechanism and cylinder, and the customer says their insurer will pay. The invoice goes to the customer, who forwards it to the insurer. Three weeks later a loss adjuster emails: please provide the crime reference, photographs of the damage before repair, and a breakdown separating the emergency attendance from the permanent repair.
The crime reference was written on a job sheet that is in the van. The photos are on the engineer's phone, mixed with the next fifty jobs. The breakdown has to be rebuilt. Meanwhile the customer is chasing you, because the insurer told them it is waiting on the locksmith.
Insurer requirements arrive after the job, not before it
On the night, the engineer's focus is getting a distressed customer's door closed. The details the insurer or adjuster later wants are easy to capture at that moment and hard to reconstruct afterwards.
- The crime or incident reference is not asked for, or not recorded in a findable place.
- Photos of the damage before any work are not taken consistently.
- The emergency visit and the permanent repair are invoiced as one line.
- Who is paying (customer, insurer, landlord, agent) is not clear at the time.
- Each insurer and adjuster wants things in a slightly different format.
What an insurer will or will not pay for is between the customer and their insurer. You can only make sure your side of the paperwork is complete.
Slow payment and a stressed customer in the middle
Burglary repairs are often larger jobs, so a stalled invoice ties up real money. The customer, already shaken, ends up passing messages between you and the insurer, and may blame you for the delay. Office staff spend time digging for photos and references for jobs that were finished weeks ago.
A burglary repair job that collects what insurers ask for
We add a break-in repair job type to your job app with the steps that matter for claims, and a pack that is ready when the job is.
- When the job is booked, the office records who is expected to pay and asks for the crime reference and insurer name if the customer has them.
- On arrival, the engineer is prompted to take damage photos before any work, and these go straight to the job.
- The emergency attendance (making the door secure for the night) and any permanent repair are recorded as separate stages, each with its own parts, time and photos.
- After-work photos are taken at each stage.
- A claim pack is generated from the job: your invoice itemised by stage, the photos, the crime reference and dates, in a PDF the customer can forward or you can send directly to the insurer or adjuster.
- Jobs awaiting insurer payment sit on a list with the claim reference and date sent, with reminders to follow up.
| Item insurers often ask for | Captured when |
|---|---|
| Crime or incident reference | At booking or on arrival |
| Damage photos before work | On arrival, before anything is touched |
| Emergency attendance breakdown | At the end of the first visit |
| Permanent repair breakdown | At the end of the repair visit |
| After-work photos | At the end of each stage |
Invoices go out complete
The first thing the insurer or adjuster receives already has what they would have asked for. Customers can forward a single PDF rather than acting as go-between. Your office sees which claims are outstanding and chases them on a schedule. Engineers are no longer asked to find photos from weeks ago.
Do burglary repair invoices stall for you?
- Adjusters regularly come back asking for photos or references.
- Emergency and permanent repair work are invoiced together.
- Damage photos are not consistently taken before work starts.
- Customers chase you on behalf of their insurer.
- You could not list which insurer payments are outstanding.