Many DeKalb County homeowners are now eligible for lower insurance premiums.
Effective Thursday, September 1, DeKalb County’s Property Protection Classification or PPC rating of 6 by the Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO) applies to all homes or properties in the service area of the DeKalb County Volunteer Fire Department which are located within five road miles of any of the eleven DeKalb County Fire Department Stations, regardless of whether or not these homes are near a fire hydrant or credited alternative water source. This rating does not affect the current rating for residents in the cities of Smithville and Alexandria, which have their own fire departments.
“We want all of our residents and property owners in the county to know they are now eligible for better insurance ratings on their property. If you have a current policy, it is your obligation to contact your insurance company and make sure they are aware of the new property protection classification and that it took effect September 1. While not all insurance companies use the ISO tool, the majority do,” said DeKalb County Fire Chief Donny Green.
Prior to September 1, homes or properties in the DeKalb County Fire Department’s service area had to be located within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant or credited alternative water supply to qualify for the PPC 6 rating. Otherwise, they had a PPC rating of 9.
“None of our surrounding counties have a county wide classification of 6 or better. We do have cities within our county (Smithville and Alexandria) and surrounding counties that have city fire departments with better ratings within those towns but as far as a county wide property protection classification, we’re the only one in this area or in any of our surrounding counties that has a county wide property protection classification of 6 or better,” Chief Green continued.
In March, the DeKalb County Fire Department was evaluated by ISO for its capabilities to supply water using the “hauling water” method. According to Chief Green, the department had to demonstrate that it could supply a minimum of 250 gallons of water per minute for two hours to all areas in the county-wide jurisdiction (264 square miles) in order to meet ISO Water supply requirements.
“It’s a stringent testing procedure and we had to prove that we can do this. Although we don’t have a lot of fire hydrants in the county, we do have some alternative water supply sources. We got those (water supply sources) credited about five years ago. We had to go through a series of testing with those which included boat ramps where we can access the lake, creeks and ponds, and even swimming pools can count for that. We got those credited and that helped. Then we did a hauling water evaluation where we haul the water to the scene using tankers along with portable drop tanks at the scene. We then shuttle the water from hydrants or alternative water supply sources so that we can provide a minimum of 250 gallons per minute for two consecutive hours. Once we demonstrated that we can do that in 85% of our coverage area in our jurisdiction, we were able to earn the county wide property protection classification improvement to a Class 6. We did our evaluation in March and got our new classification notice in June. The effective date was September 1,” Chief Green said.
Green is appreciative of the hard work of the fellow firefighters in achieving this accomplishment along with the support of County Mayor Tim Stribling, County Commission, the DeKalb County 911 Communications Center, and the water utility districts that serve DeKalb County.
“We worked on this fervently for over six months just getting the documentation and doing the testing. I had a lot of men and women in our fire department that worked extremely hard to help us do this testing. I also credit the County Commission and County Mayor. A lot of the equipment additions, training, and improvements we’ve seen in the last several years is because the County Commission has helped us. We’ve got a lot of this through grants but the County Commission and County Mayor have been very supportive by approving the matching funds for the grants in helping us improve our equipment to get to this point,” said Chief Green.
County Mayor Tim Stribling said he is proud of the County Fire Department and the work done on behalf of the citizens here. “This is evidence of how hard our fire department has worked to improve the ISO rating for the citizens of our county to provide them a better service,” he said.
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