HOME SECURITY ASSESSMENT - RISK BASED
Do not base your home and family security on adverts, costs and hardware promises!
The process is to establish a risk profile, then determine the operational objectives of your system, and then to use those objectives to select equipment and hardware that can deliver.
STEP 1
The simplest, yet most powerful form of hazard analysis is to simply describe in writing, the criminal or loss event scenarios, and the consequences or resultant losses of which you have been a victim - over the past five years.
Now expand the list by describing scenario's of crime or loss events - that you know of, which have occurred in your street during the past five years.
Expand these scenario's to include your neighbourhood, your city and your country.
You now have a detailed hazard analysis to which you could potentially fall victim.
STEP 2
Faced with such a list, you could become overwhelmed with anxiety. But honestly, you are not going to experience all these events. What you want to now establish is the probability of falling victim to any of these events.
Next to each scenario, record how many times such an event has occurred or been recorded in the past 5 years.
e.g 1. There have been 10 home invasion in our street in the past 5 years,
e.g 2. There have been 2 hijackings in our neighbourhood in the past five years,
Limit this to your street or neighbourhood. Some of the scenario's in your list may have never been recorded in your street, in which case we suggest you simply give the scenario a score of 1.
To determine the probability of falling victim to any of these events - simply divide your recorded number by 5 and multiply this by 100
e.g 1: the probability of experiencing a home invasion at our home in the next 5 years is 10/5 x 100 = 200%
Record the probability next to each scenario.
STEP 3
This step is about quantifying the consequence of the event, in monetary terms.
Here you determine the actual cost that would arise as a result of the incident.
e.g. 1 The average residential burglary results in R20000 losses. (*Hypothetical Assessment)
Physical harm, murder or rape may prove difficult to quantify in monetary terms.
For administrative purposes, the value of a human life in our country is 3 million Rand. The compensation commissioner of South Africa also has a table that will assist in assessing the monetary cost of physical harm or disability.
Next to each scenario - record the monetary value of losses or harm likely to be experienced as a result of such an incident.
STEP 4
In this step you calculate the risk.
Multiply the monetary value next to each scenario by the percent of probability.
e.g. 1 The potential monetary loss as a result of burglary is R20000, x the probability of 200% gives us a risk calculation of R40000.
Write the risk calculation next to each event scenario.
Once you add up all these amounts, you have a quantified Risk Exposure.
This represents the potential loss that you are likely to experience from a criminal event in the next 5 years.
The Risk Exposure amount is what should guide your budgetary expenditure on security arrangements - Not the cheapest cost proposal your uncle's brother in law can offer you.
* No security measures will eliminate loss entirely. It is therefore unrealistic to budget to spend the entire Risk Exposure amount. Rather assume that effective security measures can reduce your risk exposure by 70%. Your Security budget is then 70% of your Risk Exposure amount.
