How to Choose a Security Company

Start with the license, because it is the one answer you can verify

Minnesota licenses the security company, not the individual officer. There is no Minnesota guard card. That means the license is the single thing standing between you and a company that has never been checked by anybody, and it is the first thing to ask for.

The pool is much smaller than most buyers assume. In its 2025 agency overview, the Minnesota Board of Private Detective and Protective Agent Services reported 405 total license holders, of which 198 were protective agent licenses. That is the entire licensed guard industry in the state. If a company cannot give you a license number, there is a good chance it does not have one.

Ask for the license number in writing, then confirm it with the Board rather than taking the company's word for it. The Board is part of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and it handles license verification, complaints and unlicensed activity reports. Verifying costs you one phone call and it is the only question on this page you do not have to take anybody's word for.

Ask the same question about the officers who will actually be on your property. Some companies subcontract overflow work to another firm. That is not automatically bad, but you should know whether the people on site are employees of the company you are paying, and whether the subcontractor is licensed too.

Ask about training, then ask to see the records

Minnesota sets a floor. Under Minn. Stat. 326.3361 and Minn. R. 7506.2600, every officer must complete 12 hours of preassignment training within the first 21 days of employment, through a board-certified program, plus 6 hours of continuing training every year. Armed officers require an additional 6 hours annually. Employers must also run a criminal background check including fingerprints.

Every licensed company will tell you it meets this. The useful question is not whether they meet it but whether they can prove it on request. A company that tracks training properly can produce an officer's certificate and hour total in a day. A company that cannot is telling you something.

• Which board-certified provider delivers your preassignment training? The Board has certified roughly 1,500 courses from 259 approved providers, so a real answer names one.
• How do you track each officer's annual 6 hours, and who checks it before a shift is assigned?
• If I ask for the training file of the officer standing at my building, how long does it take you to send it?
• What training do officers get that the state does not require?
• Does an officer work my site alone before anyone has walked it with them?

The last one matters more than it sounds. State training covers general subjects. It does not tell an officer where your fire panel is, which stairwell door gets propped, or who to call at 2 a.m. That is site-specific and it is on the company to provide.

Ask what you receive after the shift ends

This is where good and bad companies separate most visibly, because it is the part you experience every single day. You are buying evidence that your property was watched, not just the watching.

• Do I get a written report, and how often? Per shift, daily, weekly, or only when something happens?
• What is in it? Shift times, checkpoint times, observations when nothing happened, or just an incident log?
• What time does it reach me, and is it the same time every day?
• How are patrols verified? Paper log, app, GPS, scanned checkpoint tags?
• How fast do I hear about an incident, and by what method?
• Can I see a sample report, redacted, before I sign?

A report that only records incidents is worth less than it looks. Most nights nothing happens, and a page that is blank on a quiet night proves nothing about whether anyone was there. Reports that log checkpoint times and normal conditions are the ones that hold up months later during an insurance claim or a lease dispute.

Ask about the contract before you ask about the rate

The hourly rate is the number everybody compares and the least useful thing to compare first, because the contract around it decides what happens when the service disappoints you. Get these answered before you talk about price.

• What is the minimum term, and what happens if the service is not working after a month?
• What notice period do I have to give, and does the agreement renew automatically?
• Is there a minimum number of hours per shift or per week?
• What is the holiday, overtime and short-notice rate, in writing?
• If I need to add coverage for one week, what does that cost and how fast can you staff it?
• Who pays if a shift is missed or an officer does not show?

An annual term with auto-renewal is normal in this industry and it is not automatically a trap. But it should buy you something. If a company wants twelve months, ask what you get for the commitment that a month-to-month client does not.

Ask who answers the phone at 2 a.m.

Every company will say it has 24-hour support. The question is what happens when you use it. Ask specifically: at 2 a.m. on a Sunday, who picks up, where are they sitting, and what can they actually do?

There is a real difference between a dispatcher in another state who takes a message, and somebody local who can get a replacement officer to your property. Neither is wrong. A national dispatch center genuinely is better at handling volume across many sites. But you should know which one you are buying before the night you need it.

Ask about insurance, and get the certificate

Ask for a certificate of insurance naming the coverage and the limits, not a verbal assurance that they are covered. Ask whether you can be named as an additional insured, and ask your own insurer or attorney whether the limits are appropriate for your property. This is also worth asking about any subcontractor whose officers might end up on your site.

Ask what happens if an officer is injured on your property, and what the company's policy is on incidents involving physical contact. You want the answer before an incident, not during one.

Enforcement in Minnesota is real, and it has increased sharply

Buyers sometimes treat the license as a formality. The Board's 2025 numbers suggest otherwise. It reported 56 complaints alleging unlicensed activity or statutory violations by license holders since the start of fiscal year 2024, and 16 stipulation and consent orders carrying proposed penalties totaling $586,215. The previous fiscal year's total was $2,750.

The Board also reported that its investigators attend large events specifically to audit security staff for compliance. If you are hiring for an event, the licensing status of your vendor is not a paperwork question. It is something a state investigator may check on the day.

Where a small local company is the wrong choice

We are a licensed local company serving the Twin Cities metro, and there are jobs we are not the right answer for. If your situation is on this list, hire the specialist. You will get a better outcome and we would rather tell you now.

• You need armed officers. We provide unarmed uniformed officers only. If your risk assessment calls for armed coverage, hire a firm that is set up for it, and confirm the additional annual training and certification their armed officers carry.
• You need coverage across several states or dozens of sites under one contract. National firms are genuinely better at this, and one vendor across a portfolio is a real advantage.
• You need plainclothes apprehension teams for organized retail theft. That is a specialist discipline with its own liability profile. Hire a loss prevention firm that does it as its main business.
• You need several hundred officers for a single day. Large-event staffing at that scale is its own business and the firms that do it hold the labor pool.
• You need an in-house guard force built and managed under your own brand. That is a staffing and consulting engagement, not a guard contract.

Red flags

• A rate quoted over the phone before anyone has seen your property. The number is a guess, and it usually moves after the walkthrough.
• No license number, or hesitation when you ask for it.
• No willingness to show a redacted sample report.
• Pressure to sign at the first meeting, or a discount that expires this week.
• Vague answers about who supervises the officers and how often.
• A proposal with no post orders, no escalation path and no named point of contact.
• Officers described as licensed individually. Minnesota does not license individual guards, so a company that says this either does not know its own regulator or is counting on you not knowing.

Ask all five of every company you are considering, including us. The answers will separate them faster than any price comparison, and the company that gets uncomfortable at question two is telling you exactly what you need to know.

General guidance for buyers, not legal advice. Licensing and training requirements come from Minnesota statute and rule and can change, so confirm current requirements and any company's license status directly with the Minnesota Board of Private Detective and Protective Agent Services. Insurance, indemnity and contract terms should be reviewed by your own attorney and insurer.