We had the same demands following a break in a couple of years ago when our contents were insured with a popular company on here. We’d also had a small claim based on a loss two years earlier so were then deemed a high risk.
The cost of the renewal (which had gone up considerably), the alarm installation and the maintenance contract was going to be in the £2k ballpark so we decided to risk it and self-insure by putting the money we would have been paying aside. We also spent a bit on beefing up security.
We thought we were in a pretty safe area so chances of a repeat were relatively slim, we also didn’t think we wanted to get in the habit of using an alarm and would therefore invalidate the insurance if we had it anyway. I’ve never had an alarm in any house I’ve lived in and don’t like the idea of alarming the ground floor when asleep upstairs, plus we have a cat which made the process more complicated (=expensive).
This was a big risk and as it happens we did have an attempted break in on our shed last year. Fortunately nothing was taken but it has obviously made me very nervous.
Once the earlier claim is historic enough not to be declared we’ll see if we can insure without the requirement of an alarm. Until then we’re taking our chances and hoping the neighbourhood is as safe as we think! As I understand it, the number of burglaries has increased during the recession and neither us, nor any of our neighbours, had been hit in several years prior to ours.