Do I Need Home Security?

Whether you live in a high-crime neighborhood, a quiet suburb, or the rural countryside, the safety of you and your family should be a top priority. In today's world of economic uncertainty, home break-ins and other home related crimes have been on the rise due to increasing unemployment rates and other economic factors.

Even if you never thought you needed a home security system before, now may be the best time to purchase one. After all, if someone were to break in to your home when you weren't there, wouldn't you want the police to be notified immediately and automatically?

Determining the Need

To help determine your need for a home security system, start by examining the outside of your house and look for possible entry points a burglar could use:

• Do you have ground floor or basement windows large enough for a person to crawl through?
• Are your basement or first floor windows covered or partially covered by trees, bushes, or shrubs?
• Are all of your windows and doors visible from the street or from your neighbors' homes?
• Is your garage attached to your home?
• Is your yard well lit in the evening and do you have motion sensor lighting installed?

Next, test your doors and windows to make sure that the locks work properly and there are no obvious gaps or weak points that can be easily exploited.

• For windows, make sure that locks are installed and the glass is strong and not already cracked
• For doors, make sure that each one has a properly-working deadbolt lock installed
• Do you hide a key to your door somewhere outside? (You should never do this! It is much safer to give a spare key to a trusted family member or neighbor)

Finally, play the role of burglar and pretend to break in to your own home. Have another person watch you from the street or the yard to determine how visible a possible break-in would be. Ask yourself the following questions:

• If I were a burglar, where would I try to enter my home? Pick the easiest entry point
• Can I be seen from the street or from another person's home or could I enter completely undetected?
• Can I tell whether or not my family members are home at the moment?
• If I were to break glass or force a door open, would anyone on the inside be able hear it?

If you perform this basic assessment of your home, you will most likely discover that your home is easier to break into than you originally thought. There are many simple and affordable measures that you can take to protect our home from being burglarized such as installing special locks or bars on all ground floor windows or purchasing outdoor motion detection lighting. However, none of these measures provide you with the same protection and benefits as a home security system does.

Get both a home security and a home insurance quote for double savings.