Step 1 — Define the threat picture and the assignment
Before contacting anyone, write down what you are protecting against and what the assignment looks like in practice. A two-hour airport transfer, a three-week overseas trip, and permanent residential coverage are entirely different jobs requiring different operatives, team sizes, and budgets.
Answer these honestly: Who or what is the threat? Is the protection for you, your family, an event, or a residence? Is travel involved, and to where? Should the protection be visible as a deterrent, or invisible to preserve privacy? Your answers determine the profile, the headcount, and the cost. A good provider will refine this with you through a structured risk assessment; a weak one will quote a price before asking a single question.
Step 2 — Verify licensing and legal status
This is the step most clients skip, and it is the one that separates professionals from liabilities. Licensing requirements are jurisdiction-specific and verifiable.
In the United Kingdom, frontline close protection work requires a licence from the Security Industry Authority (SIA), the regulator established under the Private Security Industry Act 2001. Operating as a close protection officer without an SIA licence is a criminal offence, and the SIA publishes a public register so you can confirm a licence is valid. From April 2026, the SIA has also introduced mandatory refresher training as a condition of licensing, which raises the bar further.
In California, the picture is just as concrete. All close protection officers must hold a valid BSIS Firearms Permit if armed, security guards must hold a BSIS Guard Registration Card, and the company providing the service must hold an active BSIS company licence — all verifiable directly at bsis.ca.gov. Comparable regimes exist across most developed markets. The rule is simple: ask for licence numbers, then verify them yourself against the issuing authority. A credible firm will hand them over without hesitation.
Step 3 — Scrutinize training and operational background
A licence is the floor, not the ceiling. Real protection demands judgment under pressure, not just physical presence. When you hire a bodyguard, you are buying decisions made in the seconds before a situation becomes a crisis.
Ask for specifics on background and current certification: close protection technique, threat and risk assessment, surveillance detection, defensive and evasive driving, and trauma medicine. Medical capability is often the deciding factor in a real incident, yet it is the easiest credential to overlook. R&H operatives are drawn from elite Israeli military and intelligence units where this training is foundational rather than supplementary.
Be wary of credentials that cannot be checked. A wall of laminated certificates from unrecognized providers is not evidence of capability.
Step 4 — Assess the company behind the operative
You are not hiring an individual. You are hiring the organization that selects, vets, insures, supervises, and — when necessary — replaces that individual.
A serious firm runs background checks on its own people, carries liability insurance, maintains a command structure, and can provide a substitute within hours if an operative is unavailable. It documents assignments and assigns a single point of contact who manages the relationship. International standards such as ASIS PSC.1, on the quality of private security company operations, exist precisely to define these accountability structures. When you engage R&H Global Protection, you are not getting a freelancer with a phone number — you are getting an operational system with redundancy built in.
Step 5 — Test for discretion and fit
For most high-net-worth clients, the best protection is the protection no one notices. An operative who draws attention, dresses for the wrong setting, or inserts themselves into conversations is a liability to your privacy and your image.
Discretion means blending into a boardroom, a gala, or a family holiday without signalling that security is present. It means clear communication that does not interrupt, and the discipline to remain in the background until needed. During vetting, pay attention to how an operative carries themselves and how the firm talks about confidentiality. Protection that compromises your privacy is not protection.
Step 6 — Demand advance work and planning
Reactive security is failed security. The value of a professional detail is in the work done before you ever arrive: the venue recce, the primary and alternate routes, the nearest trauma hospital, the contingency for an evacuation.
Ask directly how the provider plans an assignment. A capable firm will describe how it conducts advances, identifies vulnerabilities, coordinates secure transportation, and maintains real-time awareness with a fallback plan. If the answer is vague, the planning does not exist.
Step 7 — Get the commercial terms in writing
Before any deployment, the scope, rates, duration, expenses, insurance, and confidentiality obligations should be set out in a signed agreement. Clarify what the daily rate includes and what is billed separately — accommodation, flights, vehicles, and overtime on extended assignments. A professional provider welcomes a contract; it protects both sides.
