How Important are Fire Insurance Ratings (e.g. ISO PPC Ratings, FUS PFPC grades) to your department?
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Fire insurance ratings, like those given by ISO in the US and the Fire Underwriters Survey in Canada, have a significant effect on commercial insurance rates within your community.
With so many competing priorities being triaged daily, is improving this rating a departmental priority? Why or why not?
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Hi Alex,
I do know we are graded by the FUS but am not familiar with many of the survey results or recomendations. That would be an inquiry for the Fire Chief or Deputy Fire Chief or Business Manager.
However, one item that I do recall that improved our grading on the last survey was our APX Preplan program implementation. As well, our training management software 'Rescue Hub' also contributed to a grade improvement.
So yes, improving the rating is definitly a priority, one that is tackled with long term goals and vision implementation such as the need for more fire halls as the community expands, water infrastructure needs as demand increases, and climate change drives wildfire season to be hotter and longer.
I mention wildfire because we now have a robust response capability to respond to wildland interface fires as a result of a FUS recomendation. Equipment and training has been improved.
Aaron
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ISO ratings are important to our organizations to help reduce cost for insurance purposes within our communities. Preplanning, and inspections all factor in a big part of that as well. Updating inspections and preplanning are important to the ISO rating, and APX does give us the ability's to demonstrate those updates. One other item that is important regarding those ratings is fire flow, and water supply. It is important that we can update our hydrant data and flow testing annually as well.
Chief Tisius.
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