The Douglas Fire Department is happy to announce that we have been designated a Class 3 Department by the Insurance Services Office (ISO). The ISO rating is assessed every 5 years and is used, by insurance companies, to help determine the insurance rates for homes and businesses. The lower the number the greater potential for your insurance to go down. The last time Douglas Fire was scored was 2015 (COVID delayed the 5 year cycle). At that time we were a class 4. Assessments of information from 2019-2022 done earlier this year put Douglas Fire well ahead of where we were, and at the new Class 3 Public Protection Classifications.
“I’m proud of what we have all accomplished,” says Fire Chief Kevin Lomeli. “In 2015 we barely scored high enough to reach class 4 status, but this year we are class 3 and we are only 2 points shy of being a class 2 department. I want to thank our staff for all the hard work to improve the department and organize the information so that we could show that improvement.” Douglas Fire saw marked improvements in the area of training and fire staffing, with smaller gains in all areas. “We’re going to keep pressing forward,” says Lomeli. “We want to continue to improve and be better, It’s not only good for our ISO rating, it’s the right thing to do for our citizens.”
About Insurance Services Office (ISO) ratings
The ISO provides statistical and actuarial information to insurance companies so that they can see and compare the chances of a fire being catastrophic to their policy holders. Insurance companies in turn use the data from ISO to help determine insurance rates. ISO is best known for their fire department Public Protection Classification system. This system ranks fire protection from 10 (no service at all) to 1 (highest possible level of service). Ratings of 1, 2 and 3 are considered strong ratings. These scores take into account not only the fire department and its response, but also the call intake center (dispatching system) and the water distribution system available to the fire department. An ISO rating of 1 is a high mark for a community. ISO ranks around 50,000 departments nationwide and less than 1% have an ISO 1 rating. Numbers of departments in different classes vary year to year, but only about 15% of fire departments in the United States receive a Class 3 rating or higher.
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