Security Consultants for UHNW Families: An Outside Review

Security Consultants for UHNW Families: An Outside Review

Security consultants for UHNW families: what an outside review should deliver

Security consultants for UHNW families are usually called after something has already gone wrong, and I understand why. Nobody wants to pay a stranger to tell them their house, their travel and their protection team have gaps. But in my experience, the outside reviews that did families real good happened before the bad night, not after it. This month a government on the other side of the Atlantic reached the same conclusion about its own system, and the way it did so is a good lesson for any family that relies on a security arrangement it has never had independently tested.

On October 12, 2026, UK Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood told Parliament that she was ordering an independent, root-and-branch review of protective security for people in public life. According to the Home Office announcement, the review will be led by Sir Stephen Lovegrove, a former national security adviser, and will look at whether current arrangements are fit for purpose, how security is provided, whether funding and measures are used effectively and proportionately, and how decisions can be made more consistently in response to threat and risk. In her oral statement to the House of Commons, she said the review would examine physical threats, online risks and the dangers posed in a more polarised society, would hear directly from ministers, MPs and other high-profile people, and would report within six months.

The trigger was the killing of former Conservative minister and Reform UK spokesperson Ann Widdecombe. The Guardian reported that she was found dead on July 9 at her home in Haytor, Devon, and that a 28 year old man has been charged with her murder. The BBC reported that the same man has also been charged with preparing acts of terror against Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, and that he is alleged to have researched prominent targets over two years, including trying to gain entry to Mr Farage’s London home. These are charges, not findings. He is presumed innocent, and nothing here is a view on the case. The Home Secretary herself said the Independent Office for Police Conduct is investigating the police response to an earlier attempted break-in at that home and cautioned everyone not to pre-empt that investigation.

I am not writing about the victim, the accused or the politics. I am writing about the decision a government made after a death: to bring in someone from outside, give them six months and a wide brief, and ask whether the whole protective system matches the threat. Private families face exactly that question, usually without a Home Office to ask it for them. This article explains what an independent engagement with security consultants for UHNW families should actually produce, from scoping to the final report and the follow-through months later. It supports the assessment section of our 2026 guide to high net worth security, and it is a companion to our earlier piece on hiring a UHNW security consultant in Los Angeles, which covers the questions to ask before you sign anything.

Security consultant seen from behind reviewing an estate perimeter wall and gate at dusk with a notebook

Key takeaways

  • Security consultants for UHNW families earn their fee by testing the arrangement a family already has, not by selling a new one. The UK review was set up on exactly that principle: independent, wide in scope and time limited.
  • A real engagement has five parts: scoping, a threat assessment, a review of the residences and travel, live testing of the existing detail and staff, and a written report with an owner and a date for every fix.
  • Early warning signs, such as an attempted entry or a pattern of online research on the family, should trigger an outside review even when nobody was hurt.
  • High net worth security usually fails at the seams: between the house and the car, between the family office and the protection team, and between private security and the police.
  • What separates recommended HNW security teams is that they welcome an outside review of their own work and act on it.
  • The report is the start, not the end. Plan a follow up visit at 90 days and a lighter review every year or after any major change in the family.

What happened, and why an independent review matters here

The public record so far tells a story that people in my profession recognise. According to the BBC, the government is expanding police support with immediate effect to political figures who are not currently MPs, including former MPs, peers and party spokespeople. They will get access to a named police officer and help with wider security measures. In the Commons the Home Secretary said that regardless of the outcome of the police conduct investigation, it was clear there was insufficient protection for those who serve. That sentence matters. A system had been in place, people inside it believed it was working, and it took a death to bring in an outside view.

The Home Office announcement adds two details I want every family office to notice. First, the review covers the people at risk and the sites they use, including government buildings and diplomatic estates. It is a review of a system, not of one bodyguard or one camera. Second, it will not assess individual cases. Its purpose is to fix the structure so that individual decisions get better, which is exactly the right instinct for a private family as well. When I review a family’s security, I am less interested in blaming the guard who missed something than in understanding why the system let him miss it.

The scale of the problem in the UK is also on the record. The BBC reported that alleged offences against MPs rose to 976 recorded in 2025, compared with 364 in 2019, and that 50 death threats were reported in 2025, up from 31 the previous year. The Home Office said that in the May local elections the Electoral Commission found 55 percent of candidates experienced some form of harassment and intimidation. Those numbers describe public servants, not private families, but the direction is familiar to anyone who protects people with money and visibility in 2026. More people are researching targets online, more of that research turns into physical approaches, and the window between a warning sign and an incident can be long enough to act on if someone is looking.

There is also a quieter lesson in the reporting. The Guardian wrote that the accused is alleged to have travelled to Mr Farage’s home in south London on April 19, 2025 and tried to break into it, about 15 months before Ann Widdecombe was killed. Whether anything should have been done differently after that is now a matter for the investigators and the court, and I will not speculate. The general principle, though, is one I have repeated to clients for years: an attempted entry at a protected person’s home is not a closed incident once the police leave. It is information about what someone is willing to do, and it should change the protective picture for everyone connected to that person.

What this means for UHNW and HNW families in California and beyond

Many families I meet in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Orange County do not have a government protection unit. They have a patchwork. There may be a residential team on one property and a monitored alarm on the others. There is a driver who has been with the family for ten years and is trusted completely. There is a family office that handles travel, an IT contractor who handles the cameras, and a principal who prefers not to think about any of it. Each piece may be good. Nobody has ever looked at how the pieces fit, and nobody has ever tried to get through them on purpose.

That is where high net worth security quietly breaks down. In my experience, the failures are rarely about a single bad guard or a broken lock. They happen in the seams. The residential team assumes the driver is watching the street. The driver assumes the house is covered once the gate closes. The family office assumes the protection company is reading the threats that arrive through the public website. The protection company assumes the family office would forward anything serious. A good outside review is built to find those assumptions and replace them with named responsibilities.

It also matters who does the review. When the people who designed and run a program are the same people who assess it, the assessment tends to confirm the design. That is not dishonesty; it is human nature. The UK government chose a former national security adviser from outside the police structures that deliver the protection. Families should apply the same logic. If your current provider offers to assess its own work for free, take the offer, but do not mistake it for an independent review. Personal security for high networth individuals deserves a second set of eyes that has no stake in the answer.

Finally, the UK review is designed to hear directly from the people being protected. That is an underrated feature. Principals often have the clearest view of where the program annoys them, and those irritations are frequently where they start working around it. A teenager who finds the residential team intrusive will slip out the side gate. An executive who finds the advance work slow will start booking his own restaurant tables. An honest consultant interviews the family as well as the staff and treats their friction as a security finding, not a complaint to manage.

How a professional engagement with security consultants for UHNW families works

The phrase “security consultant” covers a lot of ground, from a retired officer who walks the property for an afternoon to a firm that spends months inside a family office. Neither is wrong, but a family should know which one it is buying. Below is how I structure an independent engagement for a UHNW family, based on what I learned in twelve years as a Security Operations Director and Senior Team Leader at Gavin de Becker & Associates and what we do at MSB Protection today. Our posts on what a real security audit for UHNW estates looks like and on a focused audit after a break in nearby go deep on the residence alone. This section covers the whole engagement.

Step 1: Scoping, and agreeing what independence means

Before anyone walks a perimeter, the consultant and the family need to agree on three things. The first is the question. “Are we safe?” is too vague. “Does our current arrangement match the threats we actually face across our homes, travel, office and children, and where are the gaps?” is a question a consultant can answer. The second is the scope: which residences, which family members, which staff, which vehicles, which travel patterns and which existing providers are included. The third is independence. The consultant should state in writing that they are not bidding to replace the current provider as part of the engagement, or, if they might, the family should know that from day one.

Scoping also sets confidentiality. The report will describe exactly how someone could get to the family. It should exist in very few copies, with a clear list of who reads it. I usually recommend that the principal, one trusted person in the family office and the family’s counsel receive the full version, and that operational staff receive just the sections that apply to them.

Step 2: A threat assessment that starts with people, not cameras

A threat assessment answers who might want to harm the family, why, and how capable they are. It covers known concerns, such as a former employee, a stalker, a litigant or a fixated fan, and general exposure based on the family’s profile, business, wealth and visibility. It also covers what is publicly findable: property records, staff social media, children’s school and sports schedules, aircraft and yacht movements, and anything a researcher could assemble in a weekend. This is where online activity becomes a physical issue. A person collecting addresses and routines is preparing for an approach, and the UK charges described above allege exactly that kind of long research period.

Good security consultants for UHNW families separate the threat assessment from the vulnerability assessment. Threats are about people outside. Vulnerabilities are about your arrangements. Mixing them leads to recommendations that defend against nothing in particular. Our piece on high net worth security and the persistent stalker shows how a single known concern should reshape the plan.

Step 3: Residential review, day and night

Home security for high net worth individuals is where many families have spent the bulk of their money, and also where I find the clearest gaps between what the family believes and what is true. A residential review should cover the approach roads and neighbours, the perimeter and gates, the line of sight from public ground, exterior lighting, doors and glass, the safe room or refuge, alarm zones and monitoring, camera coverage and retention, key and code control, deliveries, contractors and guests, and the response plan if someone gets in while the family is home.

It has to be done at night as well as during the day. Lighting that looks generous at 4 p.m. leaves black holes at 11 p.m. Guards who are alert during the site visit settle into a different routine after midnight. I also want to see the house when the family is away, because an empty estate and an occupied estate are two different problems. If the consultant visits a single time, during business hours, with the house manager walking alongside, you have bought a tour, not a review.

Step 4: Movement, travel and the second homes

Close protection for UHNW families often looks strong at the main residence and weak everywhere else. The review should follow the family’s real week: school runs, the office, regular restaurants and clubs, the gym, the private aviation terminal, the second home in the desert or the mountains and the summer travel abroad. For each, the consultant asks who knows the schedule, how predictable it is, who is with the family, how the vehicle is chosen and parked, and what happens if something goes wrong away from home. Our article on close protection for UHNW families traveling abroad covers the international side in more depth.

This is also where the UK case is instructive in general terms. The people who were attacked or targeted, according to the reporting, were targeted at home. Homes are fixed, findable and visited every day. A protective program that concentrates its effort on public appearances and leaves the residence to an alarm company is guarding the wrong end of the week.

Step 5: Testing the existing detail and staff

This is the part many reviews skip, and it is the part that matters. Paper policies describe what should happen. Testing shows what does happen. With the principal’s written approval and clear safety rules, a consultant can run scenarios: an unexpected delivery at the gate, a caller claiming to be from the alarm company asking for a code, a stranger photographing the house from the street, a late night alarm on a rear door, a request from someone claiming to be a family member’s assistant for the travel schedule. None of this should involve deception that puts anyone at risk or breaks the law, and the police should never be drawn into a test unannounced.

Testing also includes simple interviews. I ask each guard, driver and house manager the same questions. What would you do if someone climbed the back wall right now? Who do you call first? Where are the children at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday? Where is the refuge, and who has the key? The answers tell me more than any binder of procedures. When three people give three different answers, the family has found a gap without anyone getting hurt.

Step 6: The family office and the seams between providers

Family office high net worth individuals security is a structural question as much as an operational one. The consultant should map how threat information moves: who reads the mail and the inbound messages to the public website, who decides that a message is concerning, who tells the protection team, and who tells the police. They should look at how schedules are shared, who can approve a visitor, how new staff are vetted and how departing staff lose access. The 30 day plan for security for UHNW family offices is a good companion read for this part.

Relationships with law enforcement belong in this step too. The UK government is giving former MPs and others access to a named police officer. Private families cannot get that by decree, but they can build a professional working relationship with the local station, the sheriff’s department or the relevant threat unit, and they can make sure that a threat report reaches the right person quickly. Our post on private security for high net worth family police liaison explains how that works in Los Angeles.

Step 7: The written report and the follow through

The deliverable should be a written report that a busy principal can act on. In my practice it starts with a one page summary: the five or six findings that matter, in plain language. It then gives a section for each area reviewed, with what was found, why it matters, what we recommend and what it would cost in time, money and inconvenience. Every recommendation gets a priority, an owner and a date. Fixes that cost nothing, such as changing who receives the travel schedule, sit at the top. Large capital projects sit lower, with interim steps that reduce risk while they are built.

A report without follow through is an expensive document. I schedule a return visit at about 90 days to check what has been done, retest the issues that were found and adjust the plan for anything that has changed. After that, a lighter annual review keeps the program honest, along with an extra review after any major event: a new house, a public liquidity event, a divorce, a child starting a new school, a known threat or an incident like an attempted entry. The UK review is set to report in six months; a family should not wait that long to start fixing the obvious.

What separates recommended HNW security teams when a review arrives

If you already have a protection provider, their reaction to an outside review tells you a great deal. Recommended HNW security teams treat the review as useful. They open their logs, make their people available, explain their decisions and fix what is found. Weaker providers become defensive, limit access or try to frame the consultant as a competitor. Our article on what separates recommended HNW security teams describes the traits to look for in more detail.

At MSB Protection we run in-house research and development to counter threats to UHNW clients, which means we test new methods and equipment on our own before we recommend them to a family. We hold our own programs to the same standard. When a client asks for an independent review of work we have done, the right answer is yes.

Four questions from the UK review that every private program should answer

The Home Office described the questions Sir Stephen Lovegrove will look at in plain terms. They translate almost word for word into a private setting, and I find them a useful frame for any family weighing an outside review of its high net worth security.

Is the current arrangement fit for purpose?

Fit for purpose means fit for the threats you face today, not the ones you faced when the program was designed. Families change. A child goes to university in another state, a business sale makes headlines, a new house is bought on a street with public access. If nobody has asked whether the protection changed with the family, the honest answer is often that it did not. A consultant should compare the current program against the current threat assessment and say plainly where they no longer match.

How is security actually provided?

This is the operational map: who is on site, when, with what instructions, and who they answer to. I often find that the written arrangement and the real one have drifted apart. A post order says two officers overnight; the schedule shows one on weekends. A policy says every visitor is logged; the log has not been filled in since the summer. Private security for high net worth family members is as good as what happens on the quiet Tuesday night and no better, and that is what the review should document.

Are the money and measures used effectively and proportionately?

Proportionate cuts both ways. Some families are underprotected in the places that matter, such as the residence at night or the school run, while spending heavily on visible measures that impress guests but do little against a determined person. Others carry a heavy detail everywhere because nobody ever revisited a decision made after an old incident. A good review moves resources to where the risk is, which sometimes means spending less in one area to spend more in another.

Are decisions consistent in response to threat and risk?

Consistency is about process. When a strange letter arrives, does it always reach the same person, get assessed the same way and lead to a recorded decision? Or does it depend on who opens the mail that day? Security for UHNW family offices improves fastest when threat handling becomes a routine with clear thresholds: what gets logged, what gets escalated, what triggers a change in the protective posture and what goes to the police. An outside reviewer can write those thresholds down with the family so that the next decision does not depend on luck.

Practical checklists before, during and after an outside review

The checklists below are the ones I give families when they decide to bring in security consultants for UHNW families. They are short on purpose. Print them, assign a name to each line and come back to them in a month.

For the principal and the family

  • Agree on the real question you want answered, in one sentence, before the consultant arrives.
  • List every person the review should cover, including adult children, elderly parents and anyone who lives on the property.
  • Be honest about past incidents, even small ones: a stranger at the gate, a strange letter, an attempted entry, an employee who left on bad terms. A consultant who does not know about them cannot weigh them.
  • Set aside time for a private interview. Tell the consultant which parts of the current arrangement you find intrusive or inconvenient, because that is where people start working around the plan.
  • Decide in advance who will read the full report and who will receive extracts.

For estate managers and house managers

  • Gather the current site plans, alarm zone lists, camera locations and retention settings, and the list of everyone who holds keys, fobs or codes.
  • Pull the visitor, delivery and contractor logs for the last three months, if they exist. If they do not exist, that is the first finding.
  • Confirm the after hours contact chain for the alarm company, the residential team and the family, and check that every number still works.
  • Walk the property at night with the consultant, including the side gates, service entrances and any area where staff park.
  • Make the residential team available for interviews on every shift, not just the day shift.

For family offices

  • Map how threat information arrives: mail, email, the public website, social media, phone calls to the office and approaches to staff. Name the person who reads each channel.
  • Write down who receives the family’s travel and daily schedules, and why. Shorten that list.
  • Collect current contracts with every security, alarm, IT and driving provider so the consultant can see who is responsible for what.
  • Confirm the onboarding and offboarding steps for staff, including background checks, access removal and device return.
  • Schedule the 90 day follow up visit on the day the report is delivered.

How to vet security consultants for UHNW families

Families sometimes ask me how to tell a serious consultant from someone who sells equipment with a consulting label on it. These are the questions I would ask, and the answers I would want to hear.

  • Who will actually do the work? You want names and backgrounds of the people who will walk your property and interview your staff, not the founder who will appear at the first meeting and disappear.
  • Do you sell what you recommend? A consultant can also provide services, but it must be disclosed, and the report should give options that do not depend on buying from them.
  • How do you handle the report? Ask how many copies exist, where it is stored, who in their firm can read it and when it is destroyed.
  • Will you test, or just inspect? If the answer is inspection alone, you will get a list of equipment. Ask how they test people and procedures, and what safety rules they follow when they do.
  • Are you licensed where you work? In California, firms providing armed or unarmed guards must hold a Private Patrol Operator license from the Bureau of Security and Investigative Services. Ask for the number and check it.
  • What happens after the report? A good answer includes a follow up visit, a retest of the findings and a way to reach the consultant when something changes.

Watch for red flags as well. A consultant who promises that nothing will ever happen to your family is selling comfort, not security. A proposal that arrives before any scoping conversation is a template. A firm that wants to keep the vulnerability report on its own servers, with broad internal access, has not thought hard about what that document is. And a consultant who criticises your current provider in the first meeting, before seeing any evidence, is auditioning for the contract.

Cost is a fair question too, but I will not quote numbers here, because the honest answer depends on the number of properties, people and countries involved. What I tell families is to compare proposals on scope and method, not on the bottom line alone. A cheap review that misses the seams costs more in the end than a thorough one that finds them. Ask each firm to walk you through a redacted sample report, with client details removed, so you can see the depth of work before you commit. If they cannot show you one, ask them to describe in detail how their findings are structured and who signs off on them.

Frequently asked questions

What do security consultants for UHNW families actually do?

They give an independent view of whether a family’s protection matches its real threats. A complete engagement covers scoping, a threat assessment, a residential review, a review of movement and travel, testing of the existing detail and staff, and a written report with priorities, owners and dates. Good consultants then return to check that the fixes were made.

How is a consultant engagement different from hiring high net worth security services?

High net worth security services deliver protection day to day: residential teams, drivers, close protection officers and response. A consultant designs, reviews and tests that protection. Some firms do both, which is fine if it is disclosed and the review does not depend on buying more services from the same firm.

How long does an independent review take?

A single residence with a focused question can be reviewed in days. A full review of several homes, travel, a family office and an existing protection team usually takes several weeks, including night visits and interviews across shifts. The UK government gave its own review six months, which is a reasonable outer limit for a large and complex private family as well.

Should we tell our current security provider about the review?

In nearly every case, yes, at least at the management level. Their logs, people and procedures are part of what is being reviewed, and recommended HNW security teams cooperate openly. Specific tests of staff response can be kept confidential within agreed safety rules, with the provider’s leadership aware that testing will happen during a set period.

When should a family bring in an outside consultant?

Before a problem, ideally. Clear triggers include buying a new home, a public liquidity event or media profile, a new child in school, a change in protection provider, a known threat or fixated person, and any incident such as an attempted entry, even if nobody was hurt. An annual lighter review keeps the program from drifting.

Does a review cover personal security for high networth individuals when they travel or live abroad part of the year?

It should, if that is how the family lives. The consultant follows the real calendar, including second homes, regular international trips and the places where the family is least known to local police. Abroad, the questions are the same: who knows the schedule, who is with the family, where the safe places are and who responds if something goes wrong. The answers are usually weaker away from home, which is why the review has to go there.

Conclusion: an outside view is a sign of strength

The UK has decided that its protective system for public figures needs an independent, root-and-branch review, led by someone from outside, with a wide brief and a deadline. The circumstances that led there are tragic, and the legal process around them must run its course with the presumption of innocence intact. The decision itself, though, is one any family can make on a calm day instead of a terrible one. Security consultants for UHNW families exist to look at what you have with no stake in defending it, to test it honestly and to give you a short list of things to fix this month.

If you want to see how an outside review fits into a complete plan, start with our 2026 guide to high net worth security for UHNW families. When you are ready to talk about your own situation, our security assessment team can scope a review of your homes, travel and existing detail. We also provide executive protection and residential security for families across Southern California. Contact us for a confidential conversation.

Sources

About Michael Braun

Michael Braun is a former Special Unit Operator, former Manager at Gavin de Becker & Associates, and Founder & CEO of MSB Protection, an executive protection and residential security firm serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth clients.

Braun has built his career at the intersection of specialized protective operations, executive protection, residential security, protective intelligence, and security risk management. His experience spans special-unit operations, leadership within Gavin de Becker & Associates, and the development and oversight of private protection programs within demanding UHNW environments.

He has been recognized by The Top 100 Magazine as a leading CEO in the private security field and is the subject of an upcoming Marquis Who’s Who feature highlighting his leadership and contributions to the profession.

Today, Braun is recognized for his work in executive protection, UHNW estate security, residential protection, protective intelligence, adversarial security assessments, and security auditing throughout Beverly Hills and Southern California.

His work focuses on moving private security beyond simply “providing a body” and toward intelligence-led, risk-based protection programs designed to identify vulnerabilities before an adversary can exploit them.

Looking for Executive Protection or Residential Security Services?

If you are a high-net-worth or ultra-high-net-worth individual, family office, estate manager, chief of staff, or executive in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, Malibu or Southern California, MSB Protection provides executive protection, residential security, 24/7 protection, protective intelligence, medical-readiness planning, and security risk management.

We evaluate the complete security environment, from threat exposure and residential vulnerabilities to personnel, technology, procedures, protective intelligence, and emergency response, and build a program around the risks that actually exist.

Contact us for a confidential consultation or message us at +1 (805) 285-2807.

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