Maintained intruder alarm systems - anyone with experience?

[DeeplyMovingExperience]

We've just found out that we're going to need a "maintained alarm system" in the house we're moving to. It's a modest 3 bed terraced house, but the area means we can't get insurance without a burglar alarm.

Does anybody have experience of maintained burglar alarms? I have no idea where to start, which companies to look into, or what I should be asking for.

Thanks in advance!

Where are you? We have one that we have had from the same company across 4 houses so can highly recommend!

What you want to know is

Installation Cost
Yearly Maintenance Cost
Monitoring fee
Call out fee if there's a problem
Call out speed if there's a problem

That's four houses in sequence not at the same time!!

We are moving to Warwick.

We have one, supplied and maintained by a small local firm. It costs us £70 a year for them to look after it, including an annual visit.

We have one, also supplied and maintained by a local company. We upgraded the existing system when we moved in. It cost around £500.

The ongoing costs are about £140 per year, which includes an annual service. We aren't too far from Warwick (it's about 15 miles away).

We use ADT. They maintain it twice a year routinely and are very responsive to any problems. As it happens our ‘silent set’ feature failed yesterday and an engineer visited and fixed it.
It is not cheap, nearly £300 a year, but no call out or fee for replacement items like batteries.
Monitored with police call-out if alarm is triggered.
Our house is big and the monitoring was very reassuring when DH worked away.

@CMOTDibbler @elfofftheshelf - can I ask what make your alarms are? Also an idea of what they cost?

Thank you!!

Your insurers will probably specify what standard they require. Mine is a NACOSS member company. It has its own monitoring station which is also used by smaller local companies. The station calls me, then my keyholders, in the event of an activation.

I use the same company for my home alarm and commercial premises. The commercial contract makes a charge for every activation received by the monitors, including false alarms. The domestic one doesn;t. I don't know why.

The system was formerly Honeywell Galaxy but they recently upgraded it to the more modern Texecom Premier which seems to be well-thought of.

I suggest a keypad by the front door, and another in, or near, your main bedroom so you can operate it at night or when getting up. If your house is large or soundproof (e.g. you have fire doors) a siren close to your bedroom will wake you.

IIRC it has to have two maintenance calls a year to keep police response. Look out for the service charges. Ensure that you own your system and it is not rented or you may be captive when they winch their charges up (I hear ADT does that).

Have a look up and down your high Street to see what company is popular. There may be a local or regional one. Possibly a subsidiary of a regional utility company. I use the one used by MoD, Banks and Offices which has lots of vans and fast response. Many electricians also do alarms but will probably not be NACOSS members.

We used Britannic Security. They are based in Solihull. Cost to replace / upgrade the existing system was approx £500. Our system is Texecom, very simple to use, links via an app.

Ours came with the house, so I don't know the initial cost. Its a Honeywell Accentra though

Can I recommend keypad with code not fobs though...you are only going to attach the fob to your house keys which means if anyone gets hold of them your alarm is pointless!!!