Fire coverage improves city insurance rank

McCOOK, Neb. -- The City of McCook Fire Department recently improved its rating classification to what is likely as good as it can hope for given the community size, at least according to city leaders.

Insurance Services Offices, Inc., of Chicago performed the analysis and awarded a Public Protection Classification of three to the McCook fire department, effective Oct. 1, 2016. The ranking was an improvement from a PPC of four.

ISO ranks communities based on their firefighting capabilities with a rating between one and 10, with one being the best. McCook was upgraded from a seven to a six in 2000 and improved to a PPC rating of four in 2010.

The recently received three rating is likely the best fire rating the city has ever received, according to Fire Chief Marc Harpham, who confirmed it was at a minimum the best rating since he began with the department in 1990.

Chief Harpham said he was pleasantly surprised with the results and attributed it to improvements made in annual maintenance, testing and certification programs.

"Part of the ISO grading involves making sure we meet a lot of the National Fire Protection Association standards regarding hose testing, pump testing, ladder testing, etc.," said Harpham during a visit with the Gazette earlier this week.

The tests are performed by both fire department staff and third party companies and cover a broad range of department operations and equipment, including fit and flow testing for self-contained breathing apparatus and air quality testing for air compressors, among others.

"For example, each year, we are required to test every piece of fire hose in our inventory. Each piece of hose is charged with water and is required to hold that water under a certain amount of pressure for a certain amount of time to make sure it is still able to function on the fireground without a catastrophic failure. Our staff performs this test in-house. We are also required to perform pump testing on an annual basis. This test assures us that each of our apparatus has the ability to pump water at its rated capability," said Chief Harpham.

McCook emergency responder Dan Hartwell recently completed schooling which allows him to perform some of the tests previously contracted out to third party companies, expanding in-house testing options as well of knowledge and understanding of the requirements. Several of the tests must meet Independent Laboratories standards which Harpham indicated makes third party assistance necessary.

Chief Harpham indicated his department saw each rating improvement as a challenge to find ways to take it to the next level, however, he conceded further improvement may be dependent on increasing staff and adding equipment.

"Each time we improve our rating, we strive to do the things we can to improve it more. However, with each improvement comes more challenges to make it even better. In order to improve to a two will require additional staffing, apparatus and training," said Chief Harpham.

City Manager Nate Schneider praised the rating improvement during last week's meeting of the McCook City Council.

"There are very few communities our size that actually have a three rating for an ISO and that's due to the hard work of our fire department, Jesse and the water-utilities department, [and] our dispatchers," said Schneider. "Our entire group has done a very good job."

Schneider said it was nice to see the ratings drop to a three and the ranking was likely as good as the city could hope for given its size. "I don't think we can go any lower than that, it's probably as good as your gonna get," he said, adding, "you almost have to have two firehouses to achieve anything lower than that."

Utilities Director Jesse Dutcher said the rating is based 50 percent on fire department equipment, training and personnel; 40 percent on the community's water supply; and 10 percent on dispatching capabilities.

The Public Protection Classification plays an important role in the underwriting process at insurance companies, according to the ISO letter announcing the rating improvement. "In fact, most U.S. insurers -- including the largest ones -- use PPC information as part of their decision-making when deciding what business to write, coverage's to offer or prices to charge for personal or commercial property insurance."

Insurance companies independently determine the premiums they charge and the use of ISO's information on public fire protection may depend on several factors, including the company's fire-loss experience, ratemaking methodology, underwriting guidelines, and its marketing strategy.

Communities whose PPC improves may get lower insurance prices themselves and the rating provides fire departments with a valuable benchmark which can help planning, budgeting and justifying fire protection improvements.

The PPC program is not intended to analyze all aspects of a comprehensive structural fire suppression delivery system program or for purposes of determining compliance with state or local law, according to the letter.