The thing is, sometimes it's not just money, sometimes you get the cops chasing similar BS in order to meet quotas.
I once knew a bloke who was restoring an old car, and was overhauling the brakes - basically he'd taken off the master cylinder, so the car was completely undriveable. However, to keep it safe, he kept it on bricks, with the battery removed, locked, and behind a lockable barrier on the driveway. One night, some low-life decides to steal it. Somehow, they get hold of the keys (theory is they used a wire to grab them through an open window), took the car off the bricks, unlocked the barrier, and tried to start the car. Obviously, the car didn't go - so they pushed the car onto the road, and tried to bump start it down a nearby hill - a very long 1 in 5 grade, which ran into the center of town.
First thing this guy knows about his car getting jacked, is the cops hammering on his door to arrest him. Unsurprisingly, the thief had wrecked the car at the bottom of the long hill, after going through a store window. The thief was too shook up to think about suing, but that didn't stop the cops from dragging the guy to the station in cuffs, and filing charges of criminal negligence and allowing an unroadworthy car on the road. It actually went as far as court, before the judge saw sense and threw it out. Didn't stop the thief and shop owner suing for damages though - his insurance ended up meeting the cost of damages to the store (lucky for him he was insured even though the car was off the road). Don't think the thief ended up getting anything.