Tip for Finding a Subject’s Vehicles

I wanted to share a trick I learned when I was working as a PI in Los Angeles. In California, the privacy laws make it difficult to find out the vehicles a subject owns before actually going to their residence. For example, in most other states, you can get vehicle info on a TLO or IRB comprehensive report. But in places like California or New Hampshire, your comprehensive report will likely come back with the vehicle section blank.

So here is a trick I learned to at least find out the makes and models of vehicles registered at a particular address. If you know the subjects name, address, and date of birth, try this: go to any website that sells motor vehicle insurance (Geico, Progressive, Farmers, etc.). When you get to the landing page, there will be a box where you can enter your information for an insurance quote. Fill in the information with your subject’s details (Name, DOB, Address). If the information you enter matches someone who lives at the address with an active insurance plan, the site will automatically give you a list of vehicles that are currently registered at that address. It will list the year, make, model, and sometimes even the VIN of each known vehicle.

This can be very helpful to know before you start surveillance, as you will have an idea of what vehicles to expect when you arrive.

The picture below is a screenshot from the Farmers website after I entered my information on the page. You can see it has a list of all vehicles currently registered at my house: