New West Lakes fire rating could lower insurance rates

BIG LAKE — Homeowners in the West Lakes Fire Service Area should probably call their insurance carriers right away.

West Lakes Fire Chief Bill Gamble announced late this week that the Insurance Services Office had granted the department a ranking of 5, which is a substantial difference from the department’s previous ranking of 8b.

The fire service area was created by a 2009 ballot initiative that merged the Meadow Lakes and Big Lake fire service areas.

“They voted to put these two fire departments together and they trusted us to do this for them and we told them that we would, that this was the best chance we had to lower their homeowners’ insurance,” Gamble said.

He said he didn’t feel comfortable giving out numbers for how the change might benefit homeowners financially.

But in 2006, when the neighboring Central Mat-Su Fire Department saw its rating drop from a 5 in some areas and an 8b in others to a 4 in all areas, officials there estimated it would save residents a total of $7.1 million per year.

Gamble said he believes the savings for West Lakes homeowners could equal the cost of operating the fire department. And that is a conservative estimate, he said.

The changes take effect May 1. He said insurance companies are being notified now. Homeowners might want to start calling their carriers, and maybe some other carriers as well.

“This may be a good time for them to start shopping around,” Gamble said.

In addition to being a boon to homeowners, ISO ratings are kind of the way fire departments keep score, or at least one of them. Most Valley departments work to improve their ratings where they can, he said.

“It’s one of our performance indicators, it’s one of the tools that we use to judge how well we’re doing,” Gamble said.

It’s a lot of work. ISO looks at water supply, the number of firefighters who show up for a fire, equipment, response times, dispatching, etc.

“They just look at every aspect of your fire department,” Gamble said.

Back in 2005, Big Lake was inspected. It had an 8b rating and ISO chose to keep it there. At the time, the big piece ISO said needed improvement was in the number of fire stations and the distance between them. ISO also looks at the distance between one department’s stations and another department that might be needed to provide assistance.

“There cannot be any gaps, otherwise you cannot count those other stations as mutual aide or automatic aid,” Gamble said.

So Meadow Lakes bought another station, at Mile 51.3 Parks Highway. Gamble said its dead center between two other stations. It covered all of West Lakes’ gaps and even helped fill gaps in the neighboring Central Mat-Su Fire Department.

Gamble said that was the key to the new rating. He said he was shooting for a six or better and achieved it. But the work isn’t done yet.

“You always start looking for what can you do to get even better than we are right now,” Gamble said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.