In April of 2024, The North Greece Fire District earned the highest possible rating offered by the Insurance Service Organization (ISO), an ISO Class 1 rating.  This distinction is held by just 10 fire departments in all of New York State and currently there are 504 ISO Class 1 rated fire departments out of approximately 45,000 in the United States that are evaluated and rated by Verisk / ISO.

What does it mean to be a Class 1 Fire District?  While the Public Protection Classification (PPC) is not used to directly set insurance premiums, insurance companies do factor it in when setting their premiums. Generally speaking, a lower PPC rating means saving money with lower premiums for the residents and businesses by providing the highest levels of fire protection.

By classifying communities’ ability to suppress fires, ISO helps the communities evaluate their public fire protection services.  The program provides an objective, country-wide standard that helps fire departments in planning and budgeting for facilities, equipment, and training. By securing lower fire insurance premiums for communities with better public protection, the PPC program provides incentives and rewards for communities that choose to improve their firefighting services.

ISO’s PPC information plays an important part in the decisions insurers make affecting the availability and price of property insurance. Virtually all US insurance companies, including the largest ones, use PPC information in one or more of the following ways:

• To identify opportunities for writing new business
• To achieve a reasonable concentration of property risk
• To review loss experience in various rating territories
• To price policies, offer coverages, and establish deductibles for individual homes and businesses

Insurance Companies, not ISO, establish the premiums they charge to policyholders. The methodology a company uses to calculate premiums for property insurance may depend on the company’s fire loss experience, underwriting guidelines, and marketing strategy. ISO doesn’t know how each company incorporates the PPC information into its pricing structure, so it is difficult to generalize how an improvement or deterioration in a PPC will affect individual policies.

But here are some general guidelines to help understand the benefits of improved PPC ratings for residents and businesses:

• PPC may affect availability and/or pricing for a variety of personal and commercial insurance coverages, including homeowners, mobile homes, fine arts floaters, and commercial property (including business interruption).
• Assuming all other factors are equal, the price of property insurance in a community with a good PPC is lower than in a community with a poor PPC.

We are honored to have achieved this rating at North Greece.