Is monitoring really all that important? Also, request for general advice...

[Commander Salamander]

Hello,

I am just finalizing the purchase of my first home, and have been giving myself a crash course in alarm systems (the FAQ in this forum is terrific, BTW).  The windows in the house are hard-wired, as is a motion detector. 

From my reading to date, it seems that I need to:

[1] Get back in the house to determine whether the keypad and control panel are owned by a local alarm company (I imagine they are based on the stickers on my windows).

[2] Figure out whether the motion detector is pet resistant (I have a cat)

[3] Probably purchase and install some glass-shatter detectors...

[4] Decide how/if I will do monitoring.  I'm trying to save money, and I had planned on subscribing to DSL without an active phone line (~$20/month cheaper).  However, I presume I would then need internet-based monitoring, and opinions on that seem to vary wildly.  Any advice on my best options would be appreciated...

With respect to point#3, I find myself wondering... does monitoring provide enough benefit to justify the cost?  Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but it seems like the most significant benefits of an alarm system are the deterrent value of the signs themselves and the audible alarm that sounds during an actual burglary.  I would presume that once the alarm sounds, the burglar will know they have limited time... perhaps snatch what they can... and then split before the police arrive.

I noticed the nice summary of crime statistics on the forum, but saw no mention of how often police responding to an alarm actually arrive in time to apprehend (or at least chase off) the intruder.  Does anyone have statistics on this?

Perhaps the more important benefit of monitoring is having the smoke detectors monitored?

Anyway, maybe the best way for me to ask this is to put it this way:  if I need to cut some corners to save money, am I better off getting monitoring and skimping on the detection hardware or getting better hardware and not getting monitoring?

[Alarmtech]

I know that in the market I'm in, the money spent on alarm monitoring is generally offset by the savings you get from a discount on your homeowners insurance.

[Commander Salamander]

I know that in the market I'm in, the money spent on alarm monitoring is generally offset by the savings you get from a discount on your homeowners insurance.

I had hoped that this would be true for me as well, but unfortunately my homeowners insurance rate (from Geico) didn't actually go down from alarm monitoring because of the other discounts I had in place.  Actually, oddly enough, it went up a few dollars/year  .

[Old EW Tech]

Much has been written in the past on this topic; the forums search feature should yield a wealth of interesting reading on the subject.