Alarm Systems and Insurance Discounts in Quebec

The sales representative announces an insurance discount, sometimes a precise percentage. Nobody shows you the grid that number rests on. Here is what is published in Quebec, what is not, and the municipal bill almost nobody calculates before signing a monitoring contract.

No Quebec insurer publishes a quantified discount

Let us start with the essential point, which contradicts the sales pitch. No official Quebec source puts a figure on the home insurance discount tied to an alarm system.

The Autorité des marchés financiers is the most direct on the subject: “Some insurers will offer you a discount if your home is equipped with an alarm system. Ask what the amount of that discount is before installation.” Some, not all. Ask, because nobody publishes it. Before installation, because the reverse order takes away all your leverage.

The Bureau d’assurance du Canada says the same thing without a number. Installing loss prevention devices, including a burglar alarm system, “can provide additional protection and reduce your premiums.”

The reason for that silence is simple: every insurer has its own grid. The Autorité points out that the premium varies considerably from one insurer to another, and that a broker must be able to obtain quotes from at least three insurers, whereas an agent offers the products of only one. The only number that counts is the one your insurer writes on your file.

Connected to a central station or a local alarm: the distinction insurers look at

What is not quantified is still named. In its consumer guide, the Bureau d’assurance du Canada writes, among its tips for paying less: “Equip your home with an alarm system that would be connected to a central station.” Not an alarm system. A system connected to a central station. The Montreal agglomeration by-law makes the same separation: a system may be “local or connected to an alarm monitoring station.” A siren in an empty street calls no one. A central station validates the alert and passes on the call.

Connecting to a central station is a regulated activity. The Bureau de la sécurité privée, Quebec’s private security board, is clear: alarm response is a guarding activity within the meaning of the Loi sur la sécurité privée, the private security act. The business must hold an agency licence, and every person carrying out the activity an agent licence. The BSP’s register of licence holders tells you in real time whether the licence is valid, and not suspended, revoked or expired. Then keep your monitoring contract: it is the document that proves the connection the day your insurer asks for it.

False alarms: the municipal bill, in Montreal and in Laval

Here is the cost official sources do quantify, and it is rarely mentioned at the point of sale. The Service de police de la Ville de Montréal responds to close to 30,000 alarm calls a year, 95% of which are unfounded. The agglomeration council adopted by-law RCG 25-011 on May 15, 2025, in force since May 21, 2025. Laval, for its part, bills police interventions, and governs fire alarms through by-law L-13252.

The counting rules differ. In Montreal, an unfounded alarm triggered more than a year after the previous one counts as a first, and the charges are payable within 30 days of the invoice. In Laval, the city bills interventions made within the 183 days following a first unfounded intervention, the second one only if it occurs after a delay of ten days, and the following ones after 24 hours.

In Montreal, the person responsible is the owner of the building, except in divided co-ownership, where the syndicate takes over when the intervention does not relate to any specific fraction. The city also provides for a reimbursement of up to 90% for anyone who has their fire alarm system repaired or replaced after paying their invoices, on request within 180 days.

Declaring the alarm system to your insurer: article 2408

Article 2408 of the Civil Code is the basic rule: the client must declare all the circumstances known to him which are likely to materially influence an insurer in the setting of the premium, the appraisal of the risk or the decision to cover it.

Article 2466 covers the rest of the contract: the insured must promptly declare the circumstances that aggravate the risks and that result from his own acts. The insurer may then cancel the contract or propose a new rate in writing, which the insured has 30 days to accept and pay, failing which the policy ceases to be in force.

The price of silence is written down too. Article 2410 allows the insurer to ask for nullity of the contract in case of a false declaration, “even with respect to losses not connected with the risk so misrepresented.” The Autorité des marchés financiers says it plainly to the general public: declare even without a direct question, otherwise the insurer could refuse to indemnify even if the loss has no connection at all with your omission.

So an alarm system cuts both ways: it may be worth a discount, and having unplugged it or left it without a monitoring contract also gets declared. An insurance refusal collapses a buyer’s financing days before signing: what makes a home hard to insure can be verified before the offer, and the buyer’s guide gives the order of the checks.

An outdoor camera and your neighbour’s privacy

Here is a belief worth correcting: the Commission d’accès à l’information is not the arbiter of your neighbour’s camera. It oversees compliance with the access act, which covers public bodies, and with the private sector act, which covers businesses. Its fact sheet on video surveillance is titled “Practical advice for public bodies and businesses.” A private individual is neither one nor the other.

The framework that applies between neighbours is the Civil Code. Article 35 sets out the right to respect for privacy. Article 36 lists the possible invasions, and two of them bear directly on a camera: “Using his image or voice while he is in private premises” and “Keeping his private life under observation by any means.” The recourse goes before the courts, and recourses in a neighbour dispute follow the same logic of measurement and proof.

The criteria the Commission imposes on businesses remain the best yardstick for judging yourself: a legitimate, important, urgent and real objective, a proportionate invasion, a field of view limited to the necessary places, and retention of the images that it generally considers sufficient at 30 days. A video doorbell framed on your own door passes that test. The same camera framed on the neighbour’s yard does not.

Smart locks: what nobody puts a number on

I found no official Quebec source stating that a theft without breaking and entering is excluded from a residential home insurance policy. The Bureau d’assurance du Canada in fact places “theft or attempted theft” among the risks covered by most policies. So I will not put a figure on a risk nobody documents.

What is verifiable is more down to earth. A smart lock produces a log: which code, at what time, which door. That log is evidence, for you or against you. And every code handed to a cleaner, a contractor or a former partner is an access you no longer control. When that changes the real exposure of the house, we are back to article 2466: circumstances that result from your own acts.

Selling or buying with a leased alarm system

A leased system is not an inclusion. It is a contract, and the OACIQ forms treat it as one. The exclusive brokerage contract to sell (CCVE 00001, version 06/2022) provides, at clause 4.6, for “Service and rental contracts for appliances and equipment to be assumed by the buyer,” with three boxes: water heater, alarm system, propane tank. The Promise to Purchase (PA 00001, version 06/2022) repeats the same list at clause 11.7.

So the box exists from the first day of the listing. Checked, it means the equipment stays in place and the buyer assumes the contract. The seller also completes the Déclarations du vendeur sur l’immeuble.

What the buyer demands before signing. A copy of the contract, not a verbal summary. The term remaining and the monthly payment. Written confirmation that it is transferable, because not all of them are. The cancellation penalty, and who owns the equipment at the end of the term. Finally, the transfer of the account with the central station: a contract left in the seller’s name sends the calls to the wrong person.

Frequently asked questions

How much is the discount worth if I connect my system to a central station? No official source puts a figure on it, and no percentage quoted by a salesperson binds your insurer. The Autorité des marchés financiers recommends asking for the amount of the discount before installation, in dollars.

Do I have to register my alarm system with the city? No. Laval indicates that no permit is required for the installation, and the Montreal agglomeration by-law provides for no registration. Both cities bill the interventions arising from unfounded alarms instead.

My neighbour has a camera filming my driveway. Do I complain to the Commission d’accès à l’information? That is not the right counter: the laws it applies cover public bodies and businesses. Between neighbours, it is articles 35 and 36 of the Civil Code, before the courts. Start with a written request to reposition the camera, and keep a copy of it.

Who pays the false alarm bill when the house sells during the year? In Montreal, the person responsible is the owner of the building at the time of the intervention: an invoice issued before the sale follows the seller. Ask anyway whether there have been recent interventions, because the counter only resets after a year with no unfounded alarm.

To go further, read what makes a home hard to insure and the hidden costs of homeownership.

Selling with an alarm system under contract, or buying a property that has one? Write to me: we read the contract together before it ends up in the promise to purchase.

Georges Matar

Residential Real Estate Broker · RE/MAX DU CARTIER INC.

Contact Georges