This Security System Gives You $500 If You’re Burglarized

Picture this: You want to protect your home and your family, so you invest in a home security system. And for good measure, you make sure that your home insurance offers coverage for stolen items. You feel taken care of … but then a thief bypasses your security system and steals from your residence.

That security system that failed to protect you? You can’t hold it liable due to its service agreement. Typically, the most you can do is send in a complaint while you scramble to get your insurance to cover your losses. Meanwhile, said insurance won’t even help you unless the stolen goods exceed your deductible, which usually starts at around $500. You’re left tired, scared, and out a ton of cash, a sad cautionary tale.

But that’s not the story with SimpliSafe. SimpliSafe understands that a large, unexpected expense is a strain for most households, so if you’re a SimpliSafe customer and get burglarized, the company gives you $500 toward your deductible, as long as you meet certain requirements.

SimpliSafe furnishes its customers with something called an Anti-Theft Guarantee certificate, and if it can’t hold up its end of the bargain, it offers a one-time annual $500 reimbursement. However, there are some qualifications. Let’s talk about the prerequisites you have to meet.

First, you must have the right monitoring plan. A Self Monitoring, Standard, or Core SimpliSafe plan doesn’t cut it. You must have the more expensive Pro or Pro Plus (for your home) or Pro Business or Pro Plus Business (for a commercial building).

Next, you need to have the right SimpliSafe camera — namely, at least one Outdoor Camera Series 2 enrolled in SimpliSafe Active Guard Outdoor Protection. This premium subscription sends alerts to SimpliSafe’s professional monitoring agents, allowing them to catch trespassers and thieves who approach your SimpliSafe outdoor camera between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. at your local time.

Along those same lines, the break-in also has to happen during the active hours for SimpliSafe Active Guard Outdoor Protection (which, again, are between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. local time). This requirement is a bit eyebrow-raising because, despite public perception, nighttime break-ins aren’t so common. Most home burglaries happen during the day when everyone’s out and about, so a house break-in during those times is statistically unlikely, though not impossible. On the other hand, business burglaries are fairly common at night.

Also, your SimpliSafe security system must be armed when the break-in occurs. If yours wasn’t armed when your place was burgled, then sorry. You’re out of luck.

Finally, the burglar’s entry into your home must happen through a door or window with a SimpliSafe entry sensor on it. If the burglar got in another way, you’re once again out of luck.

Let’s be honest: these are pretty narrow terms. Still, they seem mostly fair, especially considering that SimpliSafe is one of the only security systems that offers any kind of burglary reimbursement at all.

If your house was broken into and you think you meet the qualifications for the Anti-Theft Guarantee reimbursement, here’s how you submit a claim with SimpliSafe:

If SimpliSafe finds that you meet the requirements and properly filed your reimbursement claim, representatives will issue your $500.

On the other hand, SimpliSafe might not reimburse you if you don’t meet its requirements or if it deems your claim to be filed incorrectly. And once its agents have denied your claim, that decision is “final and binding,” so you want to be extra careful that everything’s shipshape.

Last thing to know: SimpliSafe only provides this reimbursement once each calendar year. So if your home’s getting burgled on the regular, you unfortunately can recoup only a fraction of those insurance deductibles.

Security systems that offer deductible reimbursement are rare but not unheard of. (ADT, for example, offers a similar $500 Theft Protection Guarantee.) However, it’s more common to use your security system to get a small discount on your monthly home insurance premiums than to see any type of reimbursement guarantee.

But even if you don’t qualify for a reimbursement with your system, having a home security system is still a smart idea. In a break-in, a professionally monitored system offers several tools to help you help the police, like faster dispatch and video verification. Even a self-monitored system often provides video footage that you can turn over to officers.

In the end, home insurance reimbursement is one more thing to look for when shopping for a security system. If you want it, great. SimpliSafe is one of your best options for that. But if you don’t want it, that’s okay, too. Now you at least know that it’s something to consider.