InsureMe Looks at Parallels between Crime and Home Alarms

 DENVER -- May 19, 2008 -- InsureMe, a web-based service that helps people find affordable insurance, announced results of research to determine in which states people are more likely to have home alarms and whether that data coincides with crime figures.

"According to our statistics, people living in less populated states are not as likely to have house alarms, which makes sense," said Peter Deusterman, InsureMe's in-house statistician. "Wyoming, Vermont and the Dakotas have the fewest house alarms and are some of the least populated states."

But population is not the only factor playing a role in the prevalence of home alarms. Crime rates play a role as well.

InsureMe's aggregated data shows that over 40 percent of people residing in Louisiana, Florida and Maryland, using the InsureMe.com homeowners insurance shopping service, indicated that they have home alarms. Those three states also rank in the top 10 most dangerous in America, with Louisiana having the highest murder rate in the country.

Similarly, the majority--over 70 percent--of locals in New Hampshire, Maine and North Dakota do not have home alarms. In addition to being less populated, these states are the safest nationwide.

"So far it looks like the data aligns with nationwide crime statistics," Deusterman said. "However, there are some anomalies, such as Alaska, which is ranked the eighth most dangerous in the country but is near the bottom for home alarm percentage."

One reason for this apparent outlier, Deusterman conjectured, is that that the rural nature of Alaska might lend itself to a different type of crime. This theory is confirmed by the crime statistics: Alaska has high rates of assault and rape, but it places near the bottom of the list for all other types of crime.

"It seems different types of crime cause people to want a house alarm," Deusterman said.

And Virginia makes a strong case for this point; it is the 15th safest in the country, yet almost 40 percent of Virginians have house alarms. While Virginia is a safe state on most fronts, it has the fifth-highest burglary rate in the nation.

High rates of burglary, robbery and murder tend to motivate people to buy home alarms.