How to choose a burglar alarm contract Protecting your home
A properly maintained burglar alarm can increase the security of your home
Nearly half of Which? members have a working alarm in their homes even though just 1% of you have been burgled in the past 12 months.
Many of you also pay for it to be professionally maintained and even monitored.
What choices are there and how much should you pay?
Prices across the country
We called 281 companies across the UK to get a price for installing and maintaining an alarm for a three-bedroomed semi-detached home.
| Cost of installing an alarm in three-bedroomed semi-detached home | ||
|---|---|---|
| Region | Installation | Maintenancea |
| UK | £475 | £60 |
| East Anglia | £550 | £70 |
| Midlands | £413 | £55 |
| Northern Irelandb | £475 | £60 |
| North-east | £325 | £54 |
| North-West | £420 | £55 |
| Scotland | £490 | £60 |
| South-east and London | £588 | £70 |
| South-West | £500 | £55 |
| Wales | £470 | £60 |
Table notes
Prices are estimates and are the average for each area
- Cost per year
- Sample of companies for Northern Ireland is smaller. We excluded companies that included monitoring costs in their maintenance price. A high number of companies in Northern Ireland did this, which is why that sample is smaller
- Table footnote number three
Sample sizes:UK (281), East Anglia (34), Midlands (31), Northern Ireland (16), North-east (32), North-West (31), Scotland (31), South-east and London (31), South-West (31), Wales (31)
Types of burglar alarm contract
Bells-only alarm
You can just pay a one-off fee to have an alarm installed and rely on someone phoning you or the police if the alarm goes off.
Cost: Expect to pay a one-off fee of £390-£600.
Maintenance contracts
Half of Which? members with a burglar alarm pay to have it inspected at least once a year.
Having your alarm professionally maintained can help tackle the biggest problem Which? members have – false alarms.
Regular maintenance should highlight and cut down on defects, give you peace of mind and give you more redress if something goes wrong. Some contracts include extras.
Cost: Expect to pay £50-£80 a year.
Monitoring contracts
You can pay extra to have your alarm monitored, so you or a keyholder is called when it goes off. You also pay for maintenance if you want this.
The idea is that the alarm connects to a receiving centre contracted by your installer or via a monitoring company. They call keyholders if there are two indications a burglary is taking place, such as a sensor going off or the sound of a door being kicked in.
Because it is more expensive, many people may decide they don’t need this extra level of cover. You may want this reassurance if you have particularly high-value items in your home or live in a remote area where a burglary may not be seen.
Cost: Expect to pay £69-£176 a year for keyholder monitoring. And you will have to pay for maintenance as well.
Police response
For a higher fee, you can have your alarm linked to the police. Paying more won’t guarantee they come out. DCI Taylor said that whether police go to your home and how quickly depends on what other incidents are happening and what other resources are available. He said that the call is graded by a call handler at the alarm receiving centre and added: ‘If we’re fairly certain there’s someone in the premises, it’s a higher priority.’
However, if you have three false alarms (four in Scotland) in 12 months, you’re struck off the police register, and they won’t respond if the alarm goes off.
There were 330,000 false alarms for police-monitored systems in 2006-07, down from more than one million 10 years earlier. To get reconnected, you must prove that work was done to rectify problems within three months, but you’ll still have to pay for monitoring during this period.
Cost: ADT, the largest alarm-fitting chain, charges from £263.40 a year, but this includes maintenance. Your local police also charge a one-off fee of up to £45 to register alarms with a unique reference number.
Speech dialler
If you don’t want the expense of monitoring, this device is a cheaper alternative. When the alarm goes off, it calls a set of numbers of your choice (for example family members or your mobile) until it gets an answer, then leaves a recorded alert that the alarm has gone off. Only one movement sensor needs to be activated for this to happen.
Cost: A one-off fee of £99-£150 to fit and call costs to your nominated numbers, when that is necessary.
