The short answer
If your monitoring company has gone into administration or liquidation, assume your alarms are no longer being monitored until you have confirmed otherwise. Tell your insurer, arrange temporary cover — staff checks or a keyholding service — and contact a new monitoring centre straight away. A new provider cannot contact you first: data protection means customer details are not simply handed on, so the first move has to be yours.
Check today
- Is anyone answering? Call the number on your alarm panel or contract. If it does not reach an operator, treat the system as unmonitored.
- Tell your insurer. Many policies require a monitored alarm. Telling them early protects your cover; finding out after a break-in does not.
- Check police response. If your system has a police URN, it may depend on monitoring continuing. Your installer can advise.
- Arrange interim cover. Out-of-hours checks by staff, or a keyholding service, until monitoring is restored.
Moving to a new monitoring centre
What it takes depends on how your alarm signals. Many panels can be pointed at a new monitoring centre by an engineer, sometimes remotely; some need a new communicator. You will need your panel make and model, the signalling device or service it uses, and your current contact list. A new provider will build a site profile and escalation ladder with you and test the signals end to end before anything goes live.
Why the new provider cannot call you first
When a monitoring company fails, its customer list is not passed to its competitors — and a responsible monitoring centre would not use it if it were. That is why customers of failed providers often go weeks without monitoring without realising: nobody is allowed to tell them.
Former IBWEST customers
IBWEST went into liquidation in May 2024. We have since taken on sites left unmonitored, but we hold no details for them. If your alarms were monitored by IBWEST and you have not made other arrangements, contact us or call 01472 352462 and we will set your site up.
Talk it through with us
Every site is different. Tell us about yours and we will tell you plainly what we would do.