Alarm system costs

Grampus8

Afternoon all,


Soon (touch wood) moving into a new house which has a burglar alarm. I've never had one before, is there usually a monthly subscription to pay for these?

Also, for a three bed detached house, what would the likely servicing cost be?

Lastly, would the insurance company insist on it being serviced each year and do they need to know the exact model etc?


Thanks in advance!

SplanK

1 Running cost: depends on make/model.... even then, you should be able to cancel it and return it to a un-monitored.


2. Yes, you can tell the insurance but the alarm must be serviced by an approved alarm engineer annually. To be brutally honest, it very rarely makes much difference to your premium. If you do declare, you need to be maliciously about maintenance and setting it even over night.

Grampus8

Thanks SplanK - Sorry to ask again but, is there usually a monthly cost to run it? Or just the annual service cost?

Slinky

Mine is an audible only non-monitored system. I have it on a service contract which is about £90 a year and that includes a service annually.

I pay my premiums quarterly.

EssexExile

Mine is not monitored & not serviced. The batteries need to be changed every few years but the alarm tells you when they need doing.There's no point telling the insurance company because they would insist it's serviced to get a discount, said discount would be less than the cost of servicing.

SplanK

Grampus8 wrote: »

Thanks SplanK - Sorry to ask again but, is there usually a monthly cost to run it? Or just the annual service cost?

Unmonitored - no.
Monitored - yes there is usually a subscription charge.

Grampus8

Thanks all.

Talukdar

I am on a contract with yearly service. It costs me $120.

googler

£350 gets you a 3-camera CCTV system with wireless cameras, remote access and cloud storage for video. Base unit connects to broadband router, cameras connect wirelessly to base unit. Expandable to more cameras if needed. Motion-activated, so cameras are dormant until motion detected, or you manually activate them remotely. Alerts sent to your mobile or tablet if cameras activated while you're away

Arlo. Available via Amazon, which is where we got ours.

Honestly, nobody around you will pay a blind bit of notice if your alarm goes off - they'll see it as a nuisance rather than a benefit.

Wouldn't you be better off if the system actually told YOU directly if there's movement on the premises?