The riots within London, Birmingham, Croydon and other places were a stark reminder of risk of crime in UK, said Douglas Barnett, head of customer risk management at Axa.
He was among the speakers at the CSL DualCom forum for insurers at Vodafone in Newbury. With such widespread looting, very robust physical security was the main tool in protecting stock and contents, he said. “It has shown that many premises lack the levels of protection for such intense attacks. Intruder alarms were hampered by the level of violence with lack of “formal” response from police. Many losses occurred at relatively low values but many are multi-million pound losses. Many incidents turned from looting to arson. With the profile of theft being raised, insurers could turn to higher levels of protection for key target risks.”
Among the other speakers, Pat Allen of installer Abel covered fire alarms – false and confirmed. And Colin Walters of Custodian gave an ARC(alarm receiving centre) operation view of construction site security. He suggested that the average cost of a night-time security guard was £1000; and there were limits to how effective such security was. Criminals however would target building sites because they saw a demand for plant machinery. Even if a mini excavator for examle was stolen, there were ‘hidden costs’ – the policy excess on the insurance, the cost of hiring replacement machinery, and idle labour. He suggested deployable CCTV using video and voice over 3G or other media, and wireless and battery powered detection devices. Any triggered security or ‘risk of life’ alarms are remotely monitored. This gives the possibility of challenging site intruders by audio. This reduces or removes the cost of guards on-site, he said, describing it as a credible alternative to expensive security personnel.
The BSIA offered updates on the standards with presentations from Chief Executive, James Kelly and Technical Director, Alex Carmichael. An Installer and ARC Operators point of view was provided by SECOM’s Sales and Marketing director John White and SMC’s General Manager Colin Walters. Geoff Tate, Chief Executive of the SSAIB provided an Inspectorate point of view.
