Insurance Services Office Rating and Report

Last year, Laramie County Fire District #1 underwent an inspection by ISO to evaluate where we stand in our statistical ability to protect our citizens.

 

What is ISO?

• Simply put, ISO is making sure we are doing what we are saying we are doing. Essentially a report card. This report card, however, affects the cost of insurance for those in our jurisdiction.

• Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO), is a provider of statistical, actuarial, underwriting, and claims information and analytics; compliance and fraud identification tools; policy language; information about specific locations; and technical services. The organization serves clients with offices throughout the United States, along with international operations offices in the United Kingdom, Israel, Germany, India and China.

• ISO was formed in 1971 as an advisory and rating organization for the property/casualty insurance industry to provide statistical and actuarial services, to develop insurance programs, and to assist insurance companies in meeting state regulatory requirements. It became a wholly owned subsidiary of Verisk Analytics in October 2009.

• ISO's databases contain more than 17.3 billion detailed records relating to insurance and risk management, which form the basis for its information services, with two billion records collected each year. ISO employs many members of the Casualty Actuarial Society and other insurance professionals to develop its risk-related products and services.

• ISO looks at structural fire suppression, including fire safety education, fire investigations, building inspections, record keeping, pre-plans, fire training, command structure, water supply, water maintenance, communications, and on-duty personnel.

• ISO provides a rating, after a detailed review of your fire department, which they call a Public Protection Class (PPC), 1-10, 1 being great, 10 being poor. 

• ISO has evaluated and classified over 48,000 protection areas across the United States using its Fire Suppression Rating Schedule. This rating encompasses three elements of the fire suppression system are reviewed: Emergency Communications (10% of the rating), Fire Department (50% of the rating), and Water Supply (40% of the rating).

 

How does Laramie County Fire District #1 rate on the ISO scale?

• Of the aforementioned areas, we at Laramie County Fire District #1 can only control the Fire Department portion and push for changes politically in the other two aspects. We have spent the past two years investing massive amounts of time into perfecting our operations to better meet the high ratings of the ISO scale.

• The Public Protection Classes distribution in the United States currently shows 132 of the 48,754 evaluated departments at a Class 1 ISO rating, the highest possible. 1,060 are Class 2, and only 3,056 are Class 3.

• In 2005 our class was 5/9. This means that within a 5 mile radius of our stations, you were protected at a Class 5 rating and outside of that you were at a Class 9, almost the lowest rating.

• Due to the efforts of our Firefighters and senior leadership at LCFD#1, we are now a Class 3 within 5 road miles of our stations and a Class 4 outside of that. Class 3/4 is the same rating Cheyenne Fire Rescue jurisdiction holds.

• As a Class 3, we are providing our citizens with better fire protection than 44,506 of the rated fire departments. That is truly a great accomplishment! It gets even better, though. As are only 2.14 points away from being Class 2. There are currently no Class 2 or Class 1 departments in the state of Wyoming. We intend to be the first and are currently making changes to do so.

How does this ISO Public Protection Class rating affect you?

• The most obvious positive outcome for you is that we have changed and are changing in ways that make us more effective to deliver emergency response in your time of need.

• The less obvious outcome, but still very important, is that a lowered ISO rating means your insurance premiums are likely to go down. It is recommended you contact your insurance company and talk to them about this change in PPC from a 5/9 to a 3/4 for those within Laramie County Fire District #1 jurisdiction.

 

What changes are we making to improve our ISO Rating?

• We will be adding Automatic Vehicle Locator system to our apparatus. This works with Joint Dispatch’s in Computer Aided Dispatch system in recognizing the closest unit to the emergency and dispatching them.  DONE!

• We are currently in the process of selling our old ladder and acquiring one better suited to the needs of our community. By fully staffing that ladder with 6 firefighters providing 24/7 coverage we will easily get an ISO increase of 2.76 points.

• Purchasing a reserve Ladder for a very low cost and keeping it on hand. DONE! BRAND NEW LADDER IS ON THE WAY!!!

• We are reviewing the possibility of purchasing a Heavy Rescue truck and training and staffing a crew for that. DONE!! We have the state's ONLY Heavy Rescue!!!

• We are starting up an Intern program to assist with manning levels and increase the quantity of on-duty firefighters.

• We currently have 21 active volunteers. We are planning to increase this to 50. We will do this by an aggressive recruiting and training plan.

• We are already increasing the training events for those on our departments and joint events with our fellow districts and Cheyenne Fire Rescue.

• We are working on ramping up our Fire Prevention and Code Enforcement program, as well as Fire Safety Education.

• We will be increasing our senior staff capacity by hiring an Operations Chief full time.

 

You’ll be seeing us more often out during the week and pursuing these goals and doing what you expect us to do for you: our best. We have been serving this community for 1947, and we continue to do so faithfully and passionately. We thank you for all your support and we hope to have a report of even greater growth and progression soon.

 

For official documentation of the results, please see below.

 

CMCI Community Report for Fire District Station

CMCI Community Report for Fire Protection Standard Area

Laramie County Fire District #1 - Fire District Station - Public Protection Classification Annoucement

Laramie County Fire District #1 - Fire Protection Standard Area  - Public Protection Classification Annoucement