Ron Thornton, president and CEO of the Inland Marine Underwriters Assn. (IMUA), New York, attributes this to information overload. “If an underwriter receives an application either on paper or electronically and he sees the box is checked that they have an alarm system, he may go onto the next issue,” Thornton admitted. “The likelihood of an underwriter finding out what type of system it is isn’t there.”

Another situation that develops is discontinued monitoring. “Someone may have installed a new system and later they drop the monitoring, and this information is never relayed back to these insurance companies, and the customer continues to get the discount for the next 10 to 20 years,” maintained Steve Doyle, executive vice president of the Central Station Alarm Association (CSAA), Vienna, Va.