Does anyone get a discount on their homeowners insurance for having cameras? Does this also work for renter's insurance? What did the insurance company require to prove you have cameras?
Security systems lowering insurance?
- Thread starter hmjgriffon
- Start date
According to a quick google they say it can be as high as 20%, but I think it has to be monitored. Which is pretty funny, you could get a control panel and one motion sensor and a monitoring contract and bam.
Lebeter
Getting the hang of it
- May 6, 2014
- 104
- 19
You typically have to show a contract with a monitoring company negating any savings if you are self monitoring which often times doesn't count. So great you save $100 dollars, but you have to spend at minimum $9.99/mo. for some basic service and pay out more if you have too many false calls to the local PD assuming you have a poorly setup system. If you have an alarm system and cameras to verify a break-in why waste your time with a monitoring company? The savings is not worth it IMO to sign up for a service. You can call the local PD quicker than a call center monitoring hundreds/thousands of customers.
I made that point before but then I was reminded of the fact that sometimes your cell phone does not get a good signal and then you are up the creek. I will say that inside of the city no signal is pretty rare. When traveling between my city and my girlfriend's parents house an hour and a half away, forget it, I get spotty service at best, but her AT&T iphone gets signal all the way. I guess I have to convince her point SMS notifications at her phone when we go there.
Lebeter
Getting the hang of it
- May 6, 2014
- 104
- 19
I think ultimately everyone has to weigh the benefits/drawbacks of such a service. I know folks who have alarms installed and then never set it because its not habit. Or if they have a scheduled arming setup they get annoyed by it and turn it off. Or they turn the whole thing off because the installer didn't design the system around the lifestyle or types of occupants including pets with motion programming. I think eventually geofencing will become more integrated with alarm systems so that the system can logically process the occupancy of multiple inhabitants to determine automatic arming events. Many people inherit systems installed by another family and IMO almost all home security systems need to be tailored to occupants for them to be effective. It's not just a tailored to the premises deal. My experience with programming is there should be as much if not more consideration to tailoring the system to the lifestyle and habits of the occupants vs tailoring the system to the premises for the system to be effectively used. When alarm companies are promising free installs with a 2 year contract, it is not in their best interest to really spend the necessary time to evaluate the home/business and the lifestyle/expectations of the occupants and or tailor the install after the occupants get a chance to use the system and integrate it into their lives. Nor is it in their interest to install anymore necessary sensors than the promotion dictates.
there are a lot of circumstances you could potentially plan for and you could spend a small fortune to try to cut down on many other negative events like flooding etc., like installing water/moisture sensors and a triggered main shutoff valve, but one has to decide how far to go. At some point you have to decide what sacrificing your quality of is life worth worrying about all these bad hings happening and spending the time implementing multiple fail-safe technologies. Before you plunk all that money down on a monitored service I think most people can do a better job at implementing one time cost strategic deterrent methods.
there are a lot of circumstances you could potentially plan for and you could spend a small fortune to try to cut down on many other negative events like flooding etc., like installing water/moisture sensors and a triggered main shutoff valve, but one has to decide how far to go. At some point you have to decide what sacrificing your quality of is life worth worrying about all these bad hings happening and spending the time implementing multiple fail-safe technologies. Before you plunk all that money down on a monitored service I think most people can do a better job at implementing one time cost strategic deterrent methods.