New research commissioned by specialist insurer Ecclesiastical has revealed two in five (39%) crimes experienced by high net worth clients happened in home offices during the past 12 months. With rising inflation and the cost of living crisis, wealthy individuals and their home offices are a prime target for criminals.
The survey of high net worth individuals in the UK discovered 26% of crimes took place in home offices within the main residence, while 23% of crimes took place at an external home office in the garden or an outbuilding. Ecclesiastical recently published a new guide which provides scenarios and risk guidance to help high net worth clients minimise the risk of being targeted by criminals.
Ecclesiastical is encouraging brokers to refer to the new guidance at www.ecclesiastical.com/target and speak to their high net worth clients about how best to protect themselves and their households.
Sarah Willoughby, Art & Private Client Business Director at Ecclesiastical, said:
“Amidst the cost of living crisis, those who have more to lose are becoming a greater target for criminals. Since the start of the pandemic there has been a boom in homeworking and many head into their shoffice in the garden for a quiet space to work. Our latest research shows high net worth individuals and their home offices are a prime target for criminals and half of crimes that took place during the past 12 months took place in home offices. Brokers play an important role in helping high net worth clients understand the risks they are facing and in ensuring they have the right cover in place. We hope our new guidance will help brokers speak to their clients about how they can best protect themselves.”
How to protect your home office
- Set up your home office on a separate zone of the main alarm system, so that it can be locked down and alarmed at all times, even while the remainder of the property is open.
- Improve lighting around the property to act as a deterrent and provide a sense of safety.
- Ensure that security cameras covering your home office can be monitored from the main house.
- Ensure high quality locks are installed on all doors and windows and use bi-fold bolts to stop intruders lifting them off the tracks.
- Consider using Biometric security such as fingerprint access control for even higher security.
- Use a secured cabinet for storing documents containing personal data and securely dispose of sensitive data ideally using a microcut shredder.
- Consider using a removable hard drive or secure cloud storage with password security so data isn’t held on the device itself.
Last year, Ecclesiastical launched an enhanced high net worth home insurance product which includes cyber damage, cyber-crime and online liability cover as standard, and optional additional covers including business cover and travel insurance. For more information visit www.ecclesiastical.com/artandprivateclient
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