ISO Ratings
What is the District's ISO rating?
Effective February 01, 2017, the Falcon Fire Protection District’s ISO (Insurance Services Office) grading schedule has been updated to a Class 3/10 Fire Department.
- Class 3: Applies to all residential properties within five road miles of any Falcon fire station or any of our neighboring Automatic Aid fire district stations, whether or not these areas are supplied with fire hydrants.
- Class 10: Applies to all properties that are not within five road miles of a Falcon fire station or one of our neighboring Automatic Aid fire district stations, regardless of fire hydrant protection.
The ISO is a nationwide nonprofit advisory organization that provides rating and other information services to property and casualty insurance industries. Its Public Protection Classification (PPC™) program assesses the quality of public fire protection services for communities nationwide. This classification applies only to fire protection and does not take into account a community’s risk for natural disasters such as floods, hail, or high winds.
What are ISO ratings and how are they determined?
ISO ratings help determine the cost of homeowners insurance. (Note: Not all insurance companies use ISO ratings.) Ratings are based on evaluations of several categories, including:
- Personnel
- Water supply
- Equipment
- Training
- Call volume
Ratings are on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being the best rating. Higher protection class ratings translate to more expensive homeowner’s insurance premiums.
The PPC rating is just one factor used by some insurance companies to determine homeowner’s insurance premiums. However, it is important to note that not all insurers utilize ISO’s information.
When ISO representatives evaluate a community to determine its PPC, they look at the fire prevention and structural fire suppression capabilities of the area’s fire department. According to Verisk, these include:
- Emergency communications (emergency reporting and dispatch systems)
- Fire department (equipment, staffing, training, response times, facilities, equipment maintenance and testing)
- Water supply systems (amount of water available for firefighting, inspection and flow testing of fire hydrants)
- Fire risk reduction (fire prevention codes and enforcement, public fire safety education, fire investigation)
ISO’s PPC grading scale ranges from Class 1, which denotes “superior property fire protection” to Class 10, which indicates that an area’s fire protection does not meet the minimum criteria established by ISO. Lower ratings reflect the quality of a fire department and the services it provides, and usually translate into lower-cost homeowners insurance premiums for customers of insurance companies that use ISO information.
How do I know what my ISO rating is?
- Look at your property tax bill or visit the El Paso County Assessor’s website to determine whether your property is located within the boundaries of the Falcon Fire Protection District.
- Next, you can refer to an Internet mapping web page such as Google maps to determine your driving distance from the nearest Falcon FPD fire station or one of our neighboring Automatic Aid fire stations.
- Compare your findings to the definitions shown on this page.
Once you have this information, check with your insurance agent or carrier to verify that the correct ISO rating is on file for your homeowners insurance policy.
