WASILLA -- The city of Houston says residents in the southern part of the city might be able to tap into reduced home-insurance rates, thanks to a new fire station added last year.
For many years, Houston has had one fire station, located off Armstrong Road near City Hall. Property within five miles of that station has a different insurance classification, and residents there often have lower homeowner-insurance premiums than residents who live farther than five miles away.
The Insurance Service Organization, or ISO, writes a lot of the policy language used by U.S. insurance companies. The national organization also rates fire services around the nation on a scale of 1 to 10. Insurance companies use these ratings in computing home insurance rates.
Houston, like many fire service areas in Mat-Su, has two ISO ratings: 8B for houses within five miles of a fire station and a 10 for houses outside that range. A 10 rating essentially means the house is considered unprotected, even if it's within a fire service area.
Besides being based on distance from a guaranteed water supply, the ratings factor in things like maintenance of equipment, training regimens for fire responders, whether responders have had regular physicals and many other factors.
Ideally, Fire Chief Tom Hood said, he'd like to lower the rating to a 7 throughout Houston. To reach that goal, Houston in 2007 paid a consultant to help outline a way to reach the lower rating. Hood said he hopes to ask the ISO to review Houston again in 2013.
One of the primary recommendations of the consultant was building a second fire station that's insulated and that houses a 46,000-gallon water reserve tank and a 1,000 gallon-per-minute pump to allow tanker refills regardless of weather. The city recently finished the fire station, located at 12176 W. Birch Road near the southern end of the city. A 6,000-gallon tender is kept there.
"For those homeowners who had been in the area rated at a 10, if they want to seek a lower premium, they must now contact their insurance companies and report that they are within five miles of a fire station," Hood said in a letter the city prepared to address questions about the new rating.
Sarah McNair, an actuary with the state Division of Insurance, said not every insurance provider uses the ISO ratings to determine homeowners' insurance rates.
"What is fair to say is that consumers should call their agent and see what effect the new fire station has on their rates," she said.
McNair said insurance rates differ from one company to the next and based on what style of home is covered.
A 2009 homeowners' insurance guide online at the division's site shows insurance premium estimates for a solid-foundation, single-family house valued at $200,000 vary widely based on whether they are 1,000 feet from a fire hydrant, fewer than 10 miles from a fire station or more than 10 miles from a fire station.
In one company's case, annual premium estimates jumped by $1,055 between a house within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant and a house more than five road miles from a fire station. Some companies' rates recorded no change based on distance from fire stations or hydrants, however.
Find Rindi White online at adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.
By RINDI WHITE
rwhite@adn.com