Burglary - Important Notice Regarding Household Contents Insurance

How about you guys, can you open the roller shutters during a power outage?

how should that work? at most you could try to push the whole roller shutter up, but from the inside it’s certainly not easier than from the outside. however, there are really many eventualities here. fire + power outage at the same time? sure, the power line itself can catch fire or be the cause. but you can’t secure everything and at some point it just ends. otherwise, you can certainly throw yourself with full force against the plastic slats with an open window. the roller shutters are only in one track and break or fly out. if you are on the ground floor and awake, it shouldn’t be a big deal to get out of a single-family house. sure, smoke and all, but in which case should the hallway itself be on fire? tiles burn poorly and by the time the stairs catch fire, you’d be long gone anyway (especially since the stairs are practically impossible as a fire cause). if you’re afraid, you can always leave one roller shutter in the living room open once. we’re going off-topic: it said "check if your home insurance includes attempted theft." I looked into the terms and conditions but couldn’t find a clear yes/no answer. in my opinion it should be included because vandalism is also covered. for me, attempted burglary is vandalism since nothing was stolen. the insurance costs a fortune (almost more expensive than the building insurance), so stuff like this simply has to be included. better premiums with the insurance usually don’t exist because the minimum requirements are actually sufficient and the rest don’t really bring any advantage in terms of insurance. more mushroom heads prevented the break-in? the window is still broken and has to be paid for...

Hello,

the grids mentioned by are no longer a real problem, even for a small "village fire department."

Since I myself have over twenty years of experience in a volunteer fire department, I can say with certainty that there is no grid that a hydraulic spreader (which almost every fire department now has on at least one vehicle) cannot overcome in more than a few seconds.

Even sturdy front doors, secured aluminum shutters, or garage doors are absolutely no problem for a rescue saw with counter-rotating saw blades (Google keyword: TWINSAW).

In addition, is of course right: With the smoke detectors now almost universally required, it should be possible in almost every case to leave the building without outside help.

Regards,

Dirk

fire+power outage at the same time?

In the case of a short circuit, it should not be so unusual for the fuse to blow at some point. Whether it is always only the one affecting the individual circuit or whether the main fuse also blows remains to be seen.

@ construction expert:
this was exaggeratedly about bars on the windows (fully barred), which would indeed also be a problem for the fire department. Not an unsolvable but a time-consuming problem.
Just like doubly and triply secured front doors or aluminum shutters that block during a power outage.

It is a misconception to believe that there are significant obstacles for the modern fire department that would deny them access to a house. My son-in-law is a professional firefighter (luckily he is not reading here, otherwise I would probably get a reprimand due to the job title and after all these years).

I always have to smile when it is said that an emergency escape window must not have an electric shutter and if it does, only with an additional _manual_ crank. In the worst case, it takes a long time to crank up the shutter --- but firefighters will not waste that time meaninglessly; they will simply enter the house in the traditional way.

By now all new buildings should have smoke detectors, which should already sound an alarm before the house is in full blaze, so there is enough time to leave the single-family house through the front door or terrace door.

Unfortunately, it is still not mandatory to install smoke detectors in every federal state; at least since early 2017 this issue has been settled in NRW. But even then, smoke detectors only help those who regularly check the batteries.

Rhenish greetings

To return to the original topic, I would have expected the building insurance to be responsible for damages to the building rather than the household insurance. But I suppose I have to be proven otherwise and will check this again. Thank you very much for the tip.

To get back to the original topic, I would have expected the building insurance to be responsible for damage to the building, rather than the household contents insurance.

That's how I thought until now.

However, my building insurance referred me to my household contents insurance when I inquired - but not without the note that I should get back in touch if the break-in attempt is not covered by the household contents insurance - then there might be the possibility to cover the damage to the window under "vandalism to the building."