LEWISBURG — The Village of Lewisburg Fire Department has taken steps to lower its insurance classification, which may lead to an overall decrease in residential and industrial insurance rates.
During a village council meeting on Thursday, Oct. 5, Fire Chief BJ Sewert informed council he had received their latest ISO report and it indicated a drop in insurance classification.
“We had a survey inspection that was done back in June or July. It usually takes two or three months to get the results, we got them last week. We were able to lower our insurance classification. We were at a 5/8B and we were fortunate that we are now at a 4/4Y,” he said.
“What that entails is that these figures and all the calculations they make with the report they give us, they basically end up being what residential and industrial insurance rates are based on. A lot of it is based on that. With that said, there is a possibility that the people in our fire territory might see some reduction in their insurance bills.
“This goes into effect Jan. 1, 2018,” Sewert added. “Hopefully people will see a decrease, as that is the purpose of this survey.”
As for why the classification dropped, Sewert explained, “There were probably two or three different reasons. One of the biggest was the fact that we have inspected every business in the past few years. We have also increased our pre-planning of those businesses. We could have gotten 12 points for those two categories and we got all 12.”
“Training issues that we do also had an effect on it,” he continued. “The training center has an effect on it. The amount of individuals that we have here during a 24 hour period has an effect. There are all sorts of things they ask for. The one thing that did change quite a bit this time was the area outside the village.
“In January of 2014 they did new calculations, as far as people living outside the corporation limits where there are no fire hydrants. We are getting more points for that, because we are proving to them that we can get more water in that area than we used to by having automatic mutual aid,” he added. “That will help those people out in the township. We lowered that rate too, than what it used to be.”
The reports have been coming out every four years, but according to Sewert they are trying to do them quicker than four years. “The surveys now are quicker than they used to be,” he said. “We’re rather proud of the level four. They provided us with a graph of everybody that took the survey in the United States and we’re in the top third of all the departments in the U.S.
“The main factors that effected this are the fire department itself, the water supply in the village, and the Preble County dispatching center,” he said.
