By Matthew Beer, Founder and CEO, King Safety and Security (KSS)
A residential security risk assessment is an independent, intelligence-led review of a home, the household that lives in it and the exposure around both, delivered as a prioritised plan. Family offices increasingly commission one before they buy anything else, because it gives them a documented, defensible basis for every security decision that follows, instead of a series of vendor proposals they are not equipped to judge.
At King Safety and Security (KSS), a growing share of our residential assessment instructions now come through family offices, single and multi-family alike. The person who contacts us is rarely the Principal. It is a head of family office, a Chief of Staff, an estate manager or an executive assistant: someone accountable for a family’s security without being a security specialist. This article is written for them.
The problem family offices are actually solving
Family offices are expert at governing complexity: investments, tax, property, staff, succession. Security is often the exception. It tends to be handled reactively, bought product by product, and supplied by whichever installer, guarding company or consultant was recommended at the time.
The research supports this. In Dentons’ 2024 survey of more than 200 family office professionals across 33 countries, fewer than half said they regularly evaluate physical security risks, and one in three described their approach to risk as reactive rather than preventative. Only 37 per cent periodically reassess the security profile of their staff after hiring. And just 55 per cent said their internal teams have the knowledge to ask external advisers the right questions.
That last finding is the heart of it. A family office that cannot independently judge security advice is left choosing between proposals, each written by someone with something to sell. An assessment changes the order of events: diagnosis first, remedy second, and a clear basis on which the office can procure, challenge and report.
Why the risk has changed
Two shifts have made the “buy something and hope” approach untenable.
The first is exposure. Wealthy households have never been easier to research. In April 2026, an organised gang was jailed at Chester Crown Court for a spree of 59 burglaries across the UK, with around £1 million stolen. The court heard that they used Google to find affluent postcodes, then studied Rightmove listings, photographs and floorplans to plan each raid. They typically entered through first-floor windows using ladders, avoiding alarms that only covered the ground floor.
Read that as a family office would. Those homes were not unprotected; they had alarms. The alarms protected against an assumption the burglars had already researched their way around. Property listings, planning applications, staff social media and press coverage now add up to a reconnaissance file that anyone can assemble.
The second is deliberate targeting. In Toronto, police data reviewed by CBC recorded 149 home invasions affecting 231 victims in 2024. The number fell in 2025 but was rising again in the first months of 2026. Households are responding, but often product first: one Toronto security firm reported that demand for window security film has risen 70 per cent in two years.
Film may well be the right answer for a particular house. The point is that nobody can know that until someone has looked at the whole house, the whole household and the actual threat. A collection of products bought in response to the last incident is not a plan, and the people targeting wealthy homes are counting on exactly that.
What an assessment gives the family office
The value of an assessment to a family office is less about the site visit than about what it leaves behind. A good one delivers:
- An independent baseline: where the household genuinely stands, written by someone with no interest in what is bought afterwards.
- Priorities: what matters first, what can wait, and sometimes what can be removed. Proportionate security frequently outperforms an expensive accumulation of hardware.
- A procurement basis: a defined scope that suppliers quote against, so proposals can be compared like for like rather than on each vendor’s terms.
- Something to report: a document the office can put in front of the family, the family office board or the trustees.
- A benchmark: the reference point against which later changes, incidents and reviews are measured.
For a single family office running several residences, consistency is often the most valuable result. Homes secured at different times, by different local providers, rarely share a standard. An assessment programme applies one, so a London townhouse, a country estate and a home overseas can be judged on the same terms.
For multi-family offices
Multi-family offices face the same problem multiplied. Clients ask for recommendations, and the office’s reputation rides on the provider it refers. What an MFO needs is a provider that applies one standard across client households, respects the office’s relationship with each family, and produces findings the office can stand behind.
Independence matters twice over here. A referral to a firm that then sells a family equipment or manpower it did not need reflects on the office that made the introduction.
Why a penetration test is not enough
Many family offices begin by asking for a penetration test, sometimes called a physical stress test. The appeal is easy to understand: send someone to try to get in, and see what happens. When we are asked for one, we usually advise against a standalone test and recommend a full assessment instead.
The reason is scope. A penetration test is designed to find a way in, and once it finds one, it has answered its question: this door, this window, this member of staff, on this day. It does not tell you what else would have worked, whether that weakness is the one that matters most for this family, or what the household is exposed to beyond the property line. A test that fails to get in can be worse still, because it produces confidence from a single attempt.
A residential security risk assessment covers what a test would probe and a great deal that it would not: every approach and entry point, by day and by night; whether the technology works as one system; how the household and staff actually behave; and what an outsider could learn about the family before ever arriving. The result is not a pass or fail on one route. It is a picture of the whole exposure and a prioritised plan to address it.
Who should you speak to about a penetration test of an ultra-high-net-worth home? A specialist protective security consultancy with direct experience of residential protection for high-net-worth households, rather than a cyber security firm or an equipment installer. A good one will ask what question you need answered before agreeing to test anything, and will often recommend a full residential security risk assessment instead, because a test examines a single route in while an assessment examines the whole household. Any physical testing of a private home should only take place with the property owner’s written authorisation. KSS conducts residential security risk assessments for family offices in the UK, Canada and internationally.
Security culture: the layer the family office controls
Security culture means the baseline daily behaviours that keep a home secure. Who answers the door, and how. What happens when a delivery arrives unannounced. Whether the gate closes behind the contractor. What staff share online about the family’s movements. Whether the alarm is actually set at night, or has quietly stopped being set because it was inconvenient.
In our experience it is often the layer that decides whether everything else works, and the one clients least expect us to examine. It is also the layer where a family office has the most direct influence, because the office governs the household staff, contractors and routines that make it up. The Dentons finding that only 37 per cent of offices reassess staff after hiring suggests how often this layer is left to look after itself.
Security culture is not fixed in a single visit; it is built. KSS helps households and their family offices develop it: agreeing the baseline behaviours, briefing the staff who carry them out, and reinforcing them over time. That is the main reason we recommend periodic check-ins rather than a single report that sits in a drawer.
How often should a family office reassess?
Our standard recommendation is a full reassessment annually, with quarterly check-ins where the household’s profile or circumstances warrant them. Certain events justify an earlier review: a property purchase or major renovation, an incident nearby, a change in the family’s public profile, a significant change in household staff, or a new residence joining the portfolio.
A case in point
A family in Canada engaged KSS after a home invasion. They were not short of security. Over the years they had accumulated a great deal of it: systems bought at different times from different suppliers, each answering a different worry, none designed to work with the others or with how the family actually lived.
The assessment started from what the household was genuinely exposed to and rebuilt the plan from there, as a layered, proportionate system the family would use rather than work around. That pattern, accumulation without integration, is the one we see most often where a family has several properties and several providers.
What to ask before you appoint anyone
Whether you instruct KSS or another firm, these questions separate an assessment from a sales visit:
- Does the firm take commission from any equipment or service supplier?
- Is the assessment a paid engagement with a defined deliverable, or a free survey ahead of a quote?
- Will they inspect the property after dark as well as in daylight?
- Will they examine how the household behaves, not only what is installed?
- Do they start from who might take an interest in the family, or from the front gate?
- Will the recommendations stand alone, so you can act on them with any provider?
- Who will actually conduct it, and what residential protection experience do they have?
- Will they walk you through the findings in person?
These are the standards we hold ourselves to. They are also the right questions to put to anyone else.
Start with the diagnosis
The families who manage security best are not the ones who spend the most. They are the ones whose offices know what they are protecting against, hold a plan that matches it, and revisit it as life changes. That starts with an assessment.
Read how a KSS Residential Security Risk Assessment works, or contact us to discuss a property or portfolio. KSS works with single and multi-family offices in London, across the UK, in Toronto and internationally.
Matthew Beer founded KSS in 2014 and has worked in protective security for more than twenty years, across UHNW households, Family Offices and corporate Principals in the UK, Canada and internationally.
FAQs:
When should a family office commission a residential security risk assessment?
Ideally before any significant security spending, and at least annually after that. Common triggers include a property purchase or renovation, an incident nearby, a change in the family’s public profile, a significant change in household staff, or a new residence joining the portfolio.
Can one assessment cover several residences?
Each property is assessed on its own terms, but a programme across a portfolio applies one standard to every residence, so the family office can compare them directly and prioritise across the whole estate rather than house by house.
Is a penetration test the same as a residential security risk assessment?
No. A penetration test looks for a single way in and stops when it finds one. An assessment examines every route, whether the technology works as a system, how the household behaves and what the family’s wider exposure is, then produces a prioritised plan. For most family offices the assessment is the better instruction, because it covers what a test would and much that it would not.
What does the family office receive that it can share with the family?
A written report setting out findings, prioritised risks and recommendations sequenced by impact, followed by an in-person walkthrough. It is written to be shared with the family, trustees or advisers, and gives the office a documented basis for every procurement decision that follows.
Is an assessment worthwhile if nothing has happened?
Yes. An assessment is designed to find weaknesses before someone else does, and it can show that existing measures would work better with changes to configuration or behaviour rather than more spending.
Does KSS work with multi-family offices?
Yes. KSS works with single and multi-family offices, applying a consistent standard across client households and reporting through the office, in London, across the UK, in Toronto and internationally.
