Redefining the Term ” Home Security ”

As a home­own­er, I have learned that “Home Secu­ri­ty” is about much more than pro­tec­tion from a bur­glary. A recent let­ter from my home insur­ance com­pa­ny remind­ed me of the impor­tance of home alarm mon­i­tor­ing. The let­ter from my insur­ance com­pa­ny thanked me for my con­tin­ued, loy­al busi­ness and informed me of a pol­i­cy change. I dis­cov­ered that in the future, any claims on my insur­ance pol­i­cy for dam­ages due to water (flood) to my home would now be sub­ject to a $2000 deductible. It is safe to assume I’m not alone; many home­own­ers have received a sim­i­lar let­ter.

I have nev­er filed a dam­age claim, for any rea­son, let alone for water dam­age. After receiv­ing this let­ter, I researched and dis­cov­ered that water dam­age is the most com­mon rea­son for Insur­ance dam­age claims. Water dam­age is often caused by a frozen pipe that has burst and spring runoff back­ing up into the base­ment. 

So what does this have to do with Home Secu­ri­ty? Let me tell you. The ben­e­fit of a mon­i­tored alarm is that I have trained pro­fes­sion­als that can respond to sit­u­a­tions… when I can­not. Installing prop­er­ty and life safe­ty such as a flood sen­sor in the laun­dry room, anoth­er in my kitchen, and a low temp sen­sor with my smoke detec­tor added to my ini­tial alarm instal­la­tion cost. It was only a frac­tion of what an insur­ance claim would cost. Adding the low-tem­per­a­ture sen­sor to my sys­tem will hope­ful­ly give me plen­ty of notice to pre­vent any frozen pipes and any dam­age; the flood sen­sor will noti­fy me of the leak before it becomes a flood. Yes, I still con­sid­er my Alarm Sys­tem as pro­tec­tion against Bur­glary. Still, I take com­fort in know­ing I’m also ‘pro­tect­ed’ against oth­er threats, includ­ing flood, freeze, car­bon monox­ide and fire.