Insurers plan to give houses burglar rating

EVERY home will soon have a "theft score" of between 1 and 1,000, enabling insurers to calculate how often you are likely to be burgled. Houses with a rating of 1,000 points are likely to be broken into once a year and those with scores of 500 once a decade; fewer than 100 points means a burglary once every 25 years. 

People living in high-risk homes – likely to be in wealthy areas close to poorer regions, near a motorway junction or on a main road -- could see household insurance premiums rise. Insurers may also insist on comprehensive, high-technology security systems for all vulnerable properties. Experian, the credit reference agency, is behind the system, which was devised by criminologists who took information from lifestyle surveys - including data on income and spending patterns – and combined it with details of property locations to draw a "burglary map of Britain". It is thought more accurate than police data in pinpointing areas of crime. The system will identify the homes most at risk from subsidence, flooding, wind damage and, soon, "winter weather damage". 

The sophisticated system could lead to more "cherry-picking" by insurers. Cherry-picking is a controversial rating method used by many insurers to select customers least likely to make a claim. Anybody outside this band is often refused cover or charged steep premiums. 

Experian denied the system would be used to cherry-pick. Philip Highland, product consultant, said: "This is not a product companies should use to discriminate against people, but one that should allow accurate risk assessment."

Source: Independent on Sunday: 26 July 1998