Is there anything that I can do to prevent my premium from increasing?

 There are many actions with little or no cost that can be done.

 Tip 4 – Intruder Alarms

 The second most costly claims and the highest numerically by a large margin is Burglary. That is theft out of business hours by forced entry to your premises.

There are a number of critically important points to make regarding burglar alarms.

In the first place, if you have informed your insurer that you have an intruder alarm, your policy states that you must have an annual maintenance agreement in place otherwise upon checking they will refuse to pay a claim.

In the second place if your alarm is connected to a Central Station, (now referred to as an Alarm Receiving Centre or ARC), do you know what type of connection that you have? There are currently 3 different types of connection.

 Grade 2 Single Path Signaling – Most likely to be telephone line, which provides a basic level of protection. If the telephone line is cut, your alarm will not send a signal to your Alarm Receiving Centre (ARC) and you will not know that your alarm has activated. The ARC only check every 25 hours to see if the telephone line is still working

• Grade 3 Dual Path Signaling – This is where you have 2 linked means of transmitting your alarm signal. It is usually by telephone and Radio or GSM. For this level, the ARC will check every 5 hours to check that the signaling paths are still operating.
• Grade 4 Dual Path Signaling – Again you will have 2 linked means of transmitting your alarm signal with 2 of the following 3 signaling methods used together – Internet/ GSM / Radio. For this level, the ARC will check every 3 minutes that the signaling paths are operating.

Many businesses only discover the limitations of their alarm following a break in. If you have telephone link only, consider an upgrade to dual linking. Don’t wait for your phone line to be cut before upgrading.

Always remember – call us to discuss any/every incident. We will advise and guide you.