Victoria the home burglary capital as families lose $57m to thieves with break-ins occurring every two hours

Victoria has emerged as Australia’s home burglary capital, with a house broken into every two hours and insurers paying out tens of millions of dollars as families are stripped of cars, jewellery and irreplaceable possessions.

Fresh national data, from Insurance Statistics Australia, reveals Victorian households lodged almost 3900 home theft and burglary insurance claims worth $57 million last financial year — significantly more than any other state in the country.

The new figures, released by the Insurance Council of Australia, show Victoria recorded about 70 per cent more claims than Queensland, which had 2300, while the State’s insured losses were almost twice Queensland’s $30.9 million bill.

Melbourne woman Malison Febey’s family is among the victims, after thieves broke into her mother Margaret and 84-year-old grandmother’s home in Traralgon, in Victoria’s east, last month.

The family estimates about $100,000 worth of property was stolen, including two cars, generations of jewellery, an extensive coin collection, keys, medication and other valuables.

The burglary came at the end of an already devastating year for the family.

Ms Febey’s aunt, who had lived at the house while battling stage-four cancer, died last September. Her mother-in-law died two months later and her father Ken died in June.

By July, her 61-year-old mother Margaret was seriously ill in hospital.

Ms Febey’s mother and grandmother Alison were temporarily staying with her in Melbourne and were due to return to home the day after it was burgled.

Instead, when Ms Febey’s uncle arrived to do some yard work ahead of their return, he found the front door wide open.

“He went round the house and noticed my mum’s room had been absolutely ransacked,” Ms Febey told The Nightly.

Police determined the thieves had broken in through the rear of the property.

Ms Febey believes the home may have been deliberately targeted because her mother worked at a small local supermarket and many people knew she was in Melbourne receiving treatment.

“All the people that came in knew her,” she said.

“They knew that she’d been missing for a period of time.

“She’d almost died and word spreads.”

The family quickly gathered CCTV from nearby properties and Margaret’s workplace behind the house.

In footage obtained by The Nightly, two masked figures can be seen apparently staking out the property from the laneway behind it.

Separate footage shows the stolen vehicles being driven away, followed by a white van.

“We had the footage from the alleyway of the guys peering over the fence . . . we had friends up the road that were able to get footage as the cars drove past,” Ms Febey said.

“We can see exactly where the cars have gone, the direction the cars have gone.”

Despite the evidence gathered by the family, Ms Febey said the police investigation appeared to have gone cold.

The thieves allegedly took every set of keys hanging inside the home before stealing a Hyundai Tucson and an Isuzu MU-X.

Ms Febey said the cars accounted for about half the family’s estimated $100,000 loss.

Inside, Margaret’s bedroom was ransacked.

Her entire jewellery collection was taken, including pieces inherited through several generations of the family.

“Mum lost every piece of jewellery that she got from my dad, with the exception of the necklace she was wearing and her wedding ring,” Ms Febey said.

Among the items missing were diamond and sapphire rings, earrings, pearls, bracelets, watches and a distinctive collection of gold charms.

A large commercial Chupa Chups tin containing more than 20 years of collected coins was also stolen.

It included commemorative Australian mint sets, Olympic coins, silver 50-cent pieces, crowns and guineas and hundreds of loose collectible coins.

“They stole Mum’s suitcase out of her wardrobe and packed everything in that,” Ms Febey said.

The two cars were insured but much of what was stolen cannot be replaced.

“My parents were not rich people,” Ms Febey said.

“The very few things that they ever intended to pass down in their life, like gold and my mum’s coin collection, and then my dad’s car, have all been taken.”

Ms Febey said she was relieved her grandmother was not home during the burglary, particularly after Alison later went looking for a sharp kitchen knife and discovered it was missing.

“I reckon they might have taken it,” Ms Febey said.

“She’s 84. She’s an easy target.

“And you’re not going to let an 84-year-old stop you from $100,000.”

The Febey family’s ordeal comes as the ICA ramps up pressure on political parties ahead of the Victorian election in November.

“In Victoria a car is stolen or broken into every 43 minutes, and a home is broken into every two hours,” chief executive Andrew Hall said.

“The insurance data shows Victoria has a crime problem and it is being felt directly by households, businesses and communities.”

The industry wants the next Victorian government to introduce a state-wide strategy targeting motor vehicle theft and organised property crime, supported by intelligence-led policing, specialist enforcement and stronger information-sharing between police, government agencies and insurers.

The latest insurance figures show Victorian home theft and burglary claims fell from about 5100 in 2024-25 to 3900 last financial year, while the cost fell from $67.2 million to $57 million.

But even after that decline, Victoria remained comfortably ahead of every other jurisdiction.

Police data shows aggravated residential burglary also remains well above levels recorded four years ago.

Crime Statistics Agency figures show there were 24,277 residential burglaries in the year to March 2026, including 5559 aggravated burglaries.

Total residential burglary fell 14 per cent from the previous year, but aggravated residential burglaries remained almost 70 per cent higher than in 2022.

Aggravated burglaries now account for almost one in four residential burglaries, compared with about one in 10 in 2017.

Separate CSA recorded-offence data shows police logged 620 offences carrying specific home-invasion or aggravated-home-invasion classifications in the year to March — the highest number in the decade of data and almost 90 per cent more than in 2022.

The figures come amid a string of violent home invasions across Victoria.

Last week, Werribee father Gof Sritanaamorn was allegedly slashed across the face while trying to protect his wife and seven-year-old daughter during a late-night break-in.

Police allege the boys, aged 14 and 15, demanded car keys and attempted to steal the family Mazda before being arrested.

In April, an intruder allegedly entered a Doveton home while seven family members — including three children — slept inside, stealing cash, jewellery, car keys and a vehicle worth about $100,000.

In Meadow Heights in March, a mother was allegedly dragged from her bed by her hair and assaulted after masked intruders entered the wrong house.

A day earlier in Wantirna South, at least five homes were targeted within about half an hour, with terrified residents at one property locking themselves inside bedrooms while thieves moved through their house.

Back in Traralgon, Margaret and her 84-year-old mother have returned to the home, which now has new locks and security cameras.

After three deaths, serious illness and now the burglary in the space of a year, Ms Febey said her family had begun wondering when their run of bad luck will end.

“We have so many things go wrong that you just start to really hate life, and then it just keeps going wrong,” she said.

“At that point, it just becomes funny. You’re like, ‘How can this happen to us?’

“We’ve had a number of conversations around the fire about what we must have done in our past life to have really suffered.”

A Victoria Police spokesperson said the investigation was ongoing.

If you have information about the Traralgon burglary, contact Crime Stoppers Victoria anonymously on 1800 333 000.