Officials say the new ladder truck at Whitfield County Fire Station 8 helped the county receive a better rating from an insurance industry group.

DALTON, Ga. — Whitfield County’s investment in its fire department is paying off for homeowners, says Fire Chief Edward O’Brien.

Officials from the Insurance Services Office (ISO) came to Whitfield County earlier this year to review the fire department, and they recently informed Whitfield County that the ISO was lowering its rating from 5 to 3. ISO rates fire departments on a scale of one to 10, the lower the better. And insurance companies use those ratings, in part, to determine homeowners’ insurance rates.

“We were really happy, a little surprised, pleasantly surprised,” O’Brien said. “We’d hoped to go down to a 4, so to get a 3 was great news.”

The new rating takes effect Sept. 1.

O’Brien says the rating places Whitfield County in the top 11 percent of all fire departments nationwide. The city of Dalton has an ISO rating of 2. According to data provided by Whitfield County, Murray and Catoosa counties have an ISO rating of 5,  Gordon County has an ISO rating of 6 and Walker County has a rating of 3.

So how much can homeowners expect to save?

O’Brien said the county asked local insurance agencies to compare the premiums of some homes valued at $150,000, the average for the county, under a 5 and a 3 ISO rating and found about a 25 percent reduction in insurance rates when going to a 3.

“We polled some of our companies to see what the difference will be, and it’s roughly 10 percent,” said David Pennington, managing director of Dalton’s Advanced Insurance Strategies.

Cherri Robertson, who represents Farmers Insurance in Dalton, says she hasn’t had a chance to run any numbers yet, but she says she expects the impact on homeowners to be “significant.”

“We are very excited and super proud of our fire department,” she said.

Pennington says the new rating won’t have much impact on commercial and industrial properties.

“They get their own ratings based on their sprinkler systems, fire doors, things like that,” he said.

O’Brien says ISO bases its rating on a 100-point checklist.

“You can get up to 10 points for the emergency communications system. Up to 40 points is for the water system, and up to 50 points for the actual fire department,” he said. 

So what has changed to move the county to a 3 from a 5?

“911 stayed the same. It was a high 8, maybe 8.5, 8.7. Water was about the same, 35 to 37,” he said. “But, if I remember correctly, the last time we were rated the fire department got 22 points. This time we got 30. One of the biggest things are the two ladder trucks. We had no ladder trucks the last time, so for the 4 points they allocate to ladder trucks we got 0. This time we got 2.6.”

The ladder trucks were purchased two years ago with funds from the 2015 Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST).

Why does the ISO value ladder trucks so much?

“They look at it as a ladder/service truck,” O’Brien said. “The ladder truck has a lot more equipment (than an engine truck) and can do more work. And they’ve got nozzles on them that will put out twice the water that a hand nozzle will, so you can get a lot more volume to knock out a fire.”

O’Brien said the other factor that helped improve the county’s ISO rating is the decision by the Board of Commissioners two years ago to add 25 full-time firefighters and make sure that all 10 of the county’s fire stations have two firefighters on call 24 hours a day. Previously, five of the fire stations had just one firefighter on duty.

The county now has 92 paid, full-time firefighters and 29 volunteers.

“We used to be predominantly volunteer, and it takes three volunteers to equal one full-time, paid firefighter in their ratings. It’s sad, but that’s the reality,” O’Brien said. “They look at it like a volunteer may be out of the county or at work and not able to respond to a fire.”

O’Brien says the 3 rating will apply to most of the county, but there are four areas where it will not apply. In fact, those areas have a 10 rating because they are more than five miles from the nearest fire station.

The 2015 SPLOST provided funding for a fire station in one of those areas near Cohutta, which will open in 2018. And commissioners are currently looking at options to fund a fire station in a second area in the south end of the county on Riverbend Road. Those are the two most populated of the four areas.

Pennington said moving from an ISO rating of 10 to a 3 could save homeowners in those areas around 40 to 45 percent on their home insurance.

O’Brien says the county is working on a service agreement with Catoosa County to provide coverage for the third area on Houston Valley Road which would allow residents to take advantage of Catoosa County’s ISO rating of 5.  And officials are trying to develop a plan to address the fourth area, on River Road in Beaverdale.