Background Checks by a Licensed Florida Private Investigator

Insight Investigative Group, LLC is a licensed Florida private investigative agency, agency license A3400127, that runs background checks for clients in Bradenton, Sarasota, Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Every report is prepared by a licensed investigator, license C400073, sourced from records we can name, and documented so the findings can be defended later.

A report from a consumer search site is a database dump. A background investigation from a licensed agency is a record you can stand behind. We tell you where each fact came from, we tell you what we could not confirm, and the investigator who ran the search is available to testify to it. That is the difference, and it is why the two things cost different amounts.

What is included in a background check?

We run three levels. Each one contains everything in the level below it.

Standard

Identity confirmation and address history. Criminal records, covering both past and current charges. Federal civil and criminal records, plus federal government watch list records. Business affiliations. Employment and work history verification. Vehicle ownership and driving records.

Comprehensive

Everything in Standard, plus social media analysis. We identify accounts across platforms, review publicly visible activity, and map the associations that show up in it. This is the level that catches the things a records search structurally cannot: who someone spends time with, what they say in public, and whether their stated life matches their posted one.

Premium

Everything in Comprehensive, plus public record asset research. Nationwide property ownership, recorded liens and judgments, corporate filings and business ownership. Used before a lawsuit, a settlement, a partnership, or a collection, where the question is not who someone is but what is actually there.

What a background check will not include

There are records no licensed investigator can lawfully pull, and any service that offers them is either lying to you or breaking the law. We do not obtain bank balances or account records. We do not obtain telephone call records. We do not obtain sealed or expunged records. We do not obtain credit reports. We do not obtain medical records.

Those categories are protected by federal and state law. Access to them runs through a subpoena, a court order, or the subject's own written authorization. It does not run through an investigator, and a firm that implies otherwise is telling you how it handles the law generally.

How we handle your file

Florida law treats an investigative file as a regulated record. Section 493.6121(2) of the Florida Statutes requires a licensed agency to maintain the case file for at least two years and to produce it to the state regulator on request. Section 493.6119 prohibits the agency from divulging or releasing the contents of an investigative file to anyone other than the client, absent the client's prior written consent or a narrow statutory exception.

A consumer data broker operates under neither obligation. It carries no state license that can be suspended, it owes the person who ran the search no statutory duty of confidentiality, and several of them treat search activity as a product in its own right. That is a structural difference in who is accountable for the record, not a marketing claim.

The practical effect is straightforward. Your file exists so the work can be produced, audited and defended. It is confidential to you, and it is not a mailing list.

Who orders a background investigation?

Attorneys checking an opposing party or a witness before a deposition. Businesses verifying a vendor, a partner, or an acquisition target. Property owners and executives running due diligence on someone they are about to be financially tied to. Individuals confirming who they are actually dealing with before money or a family changes hands.

If the report will be used to decide on employment, tenancy, credit or insurance, it is regulated differently under federal law and we handle it as a managed engagement rather than an online order. See our notes on employment screening and tenant screening.

Frequently asked questions

What shows up on a background check in Florida?

A Florida background check run by a licensed investigator typically shows identity and address history, criminal charges and their dispositions, federal civil and criminal records, federal watch list entries, civil judgments and liens, property ownership, business affiliations, employment history, and vehicle ownership and driving records. It does not show bank balances, telephone call records, credit reports, medical records, or anything that has been sealed or expunged.

How far back does a background check go in Florida?

Florida places no general time limit on how far back a private background investigation may reach into public records, so criminal and civil court records are reported for as far back as the record exists. The limits that do apply come from the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act, and they only attach when the report is used to decide on employment, tenancy, credit or insurance. If your purpose is one of those, say so before we start, because it changes how the work has to be done.

How much does a background check cost in Florida?

Cost depends on which of the three levels you order and how much of the work has to be done by hand. A standard records search is the least expensive. Adding social media analysis or nationwide asset research adds analyst time, and analyst time is the real cost driver. County records that exist only on paper cost more to retrieve than records that are online. Call 941-297-8213 or email josh@insightinvestigationsgroup.com and we will quote the specific search before any work begins.

How long does a background check take?

A standard background check is typically delivered within 48 hours of the order being confirmed. Comprehensive and premium reports take longer, because social media analysis and asset research are done by an analyst rather than pulled from a single database. Court records that exist only on paper at a county clerk's office can add time, and we tell you up front if that applies to your subject.

Who can see my background check report?

Under section 493.6119 of the Florida Statutes, a licensed investigative agency may not divulge or release the contents of an investigative file to anyone other than the client, except with the client's prior written consent or under a narrow statutory exception. Separately, section 493.6121(2) requires the agency to maintain that file for at least two years. So the report is confidential to you as the client, and the file behind it is kept because Florida law requires a licensed agency to keep it.

Order a licensed background investigation

Prepared by a Florida-licensed investigator, agency A3400127, and documented to evidentiary standards.