For Immediate Release
(Petersburg, Virginia) – July 7, 2016. Petersburg Fire Chief T.C. Hairston announced today that the City of Petersburg has earned 2/2y Public Protection Classification rating — the second highest rating from the Insurance Services Office (ISO). This new classification places Petersburg in the top 2% of all fire departments throughout the United States – potentially lowering the cost of insurance premiums for homeowner and commercial fire insurances for residents and business owners throughout the City.
The City of Petersburg, Department of Fire Rescue and Emergency Services recently underwent an extensive evaluation audit by the Insurance Services Office. When the evaluation process was finally completed, ISO determined that the City of Petersburg was able to improve its rating from a Class 3 to a Class 2/2Y. “This is a significant accomplishment and benefit to the community. There are only 917 fire departments in the United States with a Class 2 rating which puts the City of Petersburg in a very special category with some of the best fire departments in the nation,” said Chief Hairston. “This exemplifies our motto – Petersburg Fire Rescue and Emergency Services: Not your everyday fire department, its ordinary people doing extraordinary things,”
ISO, an independent advisory and rating organization, collects and evaluates information from communities in the United States on their structure fire suppression capabilities. ISO collects and analyzes the efficiencies of several aspects of a community’s fire suppression capabilities such as City water lines, fire hydrants, fire call run times, personnel training, emergency dispatch etc. This data provides information about community risk and then a Public Protection Classification (PPC™) grade from 1 – 10 is assigned to each community. A Class 1 rating represents an exemplary fire suppression program, and Class 10 indicates that the area's fire suppression program does not meet ISO's minimum criteria. Insurance companies use the Public Protection Classification information for marketing, underwriting, and to help establish fair premiums for homeowners and commercial fire insurance. In general, the price of fire insurance in a community with a good PPC grade is substantially lower than in a community with a poor PPC grade
ISO has evaluated and classified over 48,000 fire protection areas across the United States using the Fire Suppression Rating Schedule and Public Protection Classification (PPC™) grade.