I have an alarm system installed in my home. Is that enough?

The short answer is no. In my 27 years as a Police Officer I can't tell you how many times I have attended a home with the alarm system sounding only to find that there has been a break in and the owner has lost a substantial amount of his or her valuables. On more than one occasion I have found that the alarm system has been completely disabled by the criminal. Consider the fact that the average criminal spends less than 4 minutes inside your home and that the average response time for Police is between 8 and 12 mins on a good day and you can see that Police actually don't catch very many burglars while they are still in your home. Now we do catch most criminals eventually through various investigative means but rarely do we recover your property.

Now an alarm system is a good start in protecting your home and valuables but there are some things that you need to consider. A lot of alarm companies will sell you a "basic" alarm system for your home for free...as long as you pay a monthly alarm monitoring fee. Rarely do these "basic" systems give your home complete protection. A proper alarm system needs to protect your entire home and be designed to work with your home's lighting as well be tamper proof and able to work in case of a power failure. Consider having your alarm system audited to see what level of protection you actually have.

Remember that with any alarm system there are several other things that you should do in addition to protect your family and your valuables completely. An important step would be to have a complete home safety and security audit done to help you identify some of the other things that you can do to protect yourself. It is cheap insurance that will help make your home more secure...so you don't become one of those people that comes home from work only to find that your home has been broken into and your irreplaceable valuables are gone. ......I can tell you from personal experience that it is an awful feeling...Russ