Ouch, this is difficult! I give in.
It was easy enough under BS4737, you did not need to ‘grade’ systems ….. or intruders.
Now we do, and many installers are finding it difficult to do so. So much so, that some are simply giving up and ‘grading’ everything Grade 2, or else really giving up and leaving the industry. Are they right? Is it really that much of a problem? Let’s see.

Why have grades?
Life is graded, if you think about it. To quote a few: Football teams have a whole series of grades, called ‘leagues’. NHS hospitals are generally graded as ‘Primary, Secondary or Tertiary/Teaching. Our Local Authority rates (sorry to mention a sore point with the budget still fresh) are in grades (called ‘bands’) which determine how much we pay.
Our motor insurance is at least partially dependent on our post code with insurers having maybe 15 or so different bands.

You get the point (even if you do not necessarily agree that it’s a fair way to go).

Ok, so now to intruders. The type of gang that did the Security Express depot for around £8 million a few years ago are not going to be sniffing around private houses, and the type of drug addict who does go sniffing around in more ways than one is not likely to targeting Security Express type operations. So why suggest that the security thinking and design of alarm systems should be based on the same philosophy?

It’s quite simply horses for courses. (And whilst I have zilch interest in horse racing, don’t they have ‘novice chases’ and similar where the horses are effectively graded?)

Who’s in what Grade?
Security installer magazine has been covering this subject extensively, and Tony Weekes from NSI answered this question in a letter to that magazine in January this year. I think it is well worth repeating the gist of this as a helpful guide for installers. After all, they rarely (we hope!) get to compare notes with the bad guys that they are trying to keep away from the honey, so grading them is not going to be an easy task.

Grade 1
Think opportunistic youngsters, maybe on drugs, targeting homes of the elderly, careless (windows left open, doors unlocked etc) generally locally as they often have no transport.

Target goods are cash, credit cards, watches, jewellery, cameras etc. Think hundreds of pounds.

Grade 2
Experienced, more daring. Target larger homes and maybe businesses, or just the latter. Ram-raid and or smash and grab, on the premises for a few minutes and losses may be in the low thousands. May well not operate alone, likely done their homework on the premises beforehand. May attack SABs, will have a fair idea of police response times.

Grade 3
Serious hard core teams of professionals targeting commercial premises, country houses, homes of the famous. Considerable knowledge of intruder alarm systems, will nearly always attack the signalling paths prior to a burglary. Will have done a lot of homework on the premises in question, and be prepared to spend up to four hours (yes, hours) to gain entry.

Thieving to order, they will already have ‘sold’ the goods prior to the theft. Patient, thoughtful, will use any available ‘help’ found on site eg vehicle keys, fork lifts, company vehicles. Detectors, internal sounders, RKPs all may be attacked, STUs ripped out etc. Almost certainly wait for a while to see who turns up after cutting telephone lines, then go in leaving watchman in approach area in case of interruption. Typically hundreds of thousands of pounds of losses.

Grade 4
Terrorists, bank robbers, serious violence against anyone in the way, these intruders are not the province of 99.9% of installers or their intruder alarm systems.

The Big Issue
Grade 1 is lower than BS4737, and it’s End User territory, so not for real installers.
Grade 4 is another league, forget it realistically.

With apologies to Shakespeare, the big issue then is “To Three or not to Three”.
Insurers want installers to go for Three for virtually all commercials, but will not stand up and specify Three to the insured. This is a ridiculous state of affairs. They know the postcode bands, the stock thresholds where 2 Moves to Three, claims history etc. If insurers want Three they should say so.

Until they do, it is simply not going to happen. Installers understandably do not want to price themselves out of the market by risking a Three suggestion against the competition’s Two. Not in the real world.

That said, some buildings are obviously Threes. Large offices, warehouses, off licences, factories, electronic goods, jewellers etc all scream out ‘Three’ on their own, and a professional installer would not risk their reputation by installing a Grade 2.

The average domestic property, florists, local pet food shops, community halls, places where it is obvious there is very little chance of any sizeable loss, are the market for Grade Twos, and consider whether they should be TwoX (if you think of the “X” as meaning “Excluding” remote signalling it’s easy to remember).

The Bottom Line
Route one. I strongly recommend that you ask your prospective clients to ask their insurer to specify the Grade, but that’s not always easy for a number of reasons. Try it where possible. Failing that, take a step back from the property and think which of the intruder types is likely to target the property, and do your System Design Proposal accordingly.

Include in your proposal the fact that you will grade it yourself if insurers cannot/will not, but in that instance, you will be happy to carry out any later changes required by insurers, but at your normal rates. If it’s in writing you cover yourself, and while likely remove the main heat from any future fallout: “Please go back to the quote (oops – I mean SDP) I sent you and you will see that I did advise you beforehand and that’s all I can do……….I have no control you’re your insurer’s timescales, I wish I did!” is the line to take.

I hope that helps…
That’s the best general guidance I can give you. As it is given freely then I cannot take responsibility for any commercial decisions you make after reading this. It’s your show so you have to take responsibility. (If you want to pay me money then that’s an altogether different kettle of fish……..).

I hope to cover the EN50131-7 Risk Survey itself in more detail next time.

Written by Graeme Dow - Visit Website
Graeme Dow is an independent security advisor with extensive experience of manufacturing intruder alarm control panels, technical insurance (efficacy), business development and forensic burglary investigation.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 8:34 pm and is filed under Grading Intruder. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.