INS tacks on monitoring

WOOD DALE, Ill.--INS Integrated Security Solutions, a full service alarm company, opened an in-house central station this fall after it relocated to a larger facility last May. For the past 12 years, the company has been outsourcing monitoring services for customers, predominantly financial institutions throughout the Chicago area. The company can now offer proprietary monitoring as a way to continue service that it has already established with its clients. "We didn't want to rely on [other central stations'] standards. We took complete control to keep all monitoring in house," said Wayne Beutin, INS senior vice president. The move gave the company 25,000 square feet, and devoted 5,000 square feet to a central station and showroom. As INS Integrated Security Solutions' clients are financial institutions, the company wanted to take precautions with their central similar to those taken by its clients with their facilities, such as bullet proofing glass and walls. "We owe it to our customer," Beutin said. "The added security assures them that our facility can not be penetrated." The company's tenure in the Chicago vicinity goes back 35 years. It opened as Illinois National Safe, a lock and safe organization. It migrated from the physical security side to the electronics side 12 years ago, said Beutin, after customers began asking: "You take care of my safe and vault, can you please service my camera and surveillance system?" Now, as a hybrid company, it offers electronic security, burglary, fire, access control and maintains a lock division. Beutin said the facility recently received Underwriter Laboratories listing. It uses Bold Technologies software and technology, such as video remote access management that offers manageability and typically decreases false alarms, Beutin added. The company would not disclose the number of accounts it works with. However, Beutin said clients are dotted throughout metropolitan Chicago and Illinois.