Fire insurance rates for South Tahoe to be reviewed
By Kathryn Reed
What insurance companies charge property owners in South Lake Tahoe may be changing.
Officials with the Chicago-based Insurance Services Office will be in town a week from today to assess the city’s fire rating. This is usually done every 10 to 15 years, with South Tahoe’s last rating being from 1995.
Several things are looked at, including, but not limited to:
• Where the nearest fire hydrant is
• Water flow capacity
• Ability to deliver the water to a fire
• Distance to a manned fire station
• Dispatch center
• Engine company staffing
• Water flow needs
• Number of large occupancies
• Wildland urban interface.
The latter is a new addition of late. This area is where residences border forested areas.
After the 2007 Angora Fire that destroyed 254 houses, some insurance companies stopped writing new policies in the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Each criterion above is not rated equally. The water system is weighted 30 percent, while dispatch is 10 percent.
Division Chief Marty Scheuerman is hoping improvements like increased water flow that have been made in the last 15 years will outweigh the negatives such as fewer people in dispatch and operating a ladder truck that by some standards has outlived its desired life.
South Tahoe is on a two-tier rating with those in the Lukins Brothers Water District an 8, and the rest of the city a 5. The scale is 1 to 10 with 10 being the worst.
“They look at all of our records including maintenance, testing of hydrants,” explained Scheuerman.
A water system map is provided to the rating officials.
But Scheuerman noted that even though the fire department has a good relationship with outside agencies, they don’t have control of them in terms of how they keep records or what they do with water flow.
Several companies provide water to South Lake Tahoe. Besides South Tahoe Public Utility District, which is the biggie, there is Lukins, Tahoe Keys and Lakeside water districts.
The Insurance Service Office will tour the area and review documents, with a score expected in the fall.
The ISO was created after the large-scale fires in Chicago leveled the Windy City and there was a need to quantify fire protection so insurance companies would know what to charge.
Good luck to the citizens of our community, most likly our insurance rates will go up after ISO takes a look. The pending decisions of the city manager and the city council to cut fire department staff will cause the rate increase. If we are to examine the problem, look into a mirror, we elected them and they hired this brutal city manager.
Nothing but a money scam,too many trees hang over homes or too close to structure,it’s a scam and people know it.
There’s not one tree company that does the work for a reasonable rate so people just let it happen,kinda like blight ,building dept,TRPA.
Looks good for society ,but with the country going broke ,money getting to be a real joke anyway.
Soon as labor day hits town ,you’ll see the ghost town start reappearing.Happens just like clock work.
Well, don’t you think your rates will go up with the entities that employ firefighters laying off several? Response time could suffer, existing personnel will be taxed with more duties. There are probably minimum staffing level requirements for certain hazardous areas. ??????????????????
Clear, obviously you haven’t called very many tree companies as most are willing to work with you but not work for free. There is the NVFSC rebate program that will end this year that a lot of folks have taken advantage of and it was highly successful as we usually do about 75 a year. I am even willing to rent you my equipment and let you do it yourself if you think our prices are of a reasonable rate.
Just a thought on the water flows out of the hydrant. It does not matter what the flow is as it will be restricted by the Engine and output capacity which is 1500 gallons a minute(if I am wrong FD, let me know) When they were requiring sprinklers in a house whose nearby hydrant flow was required to be 1750 gpm the trucks were less than the flow. Kinda bassackwards to keep insisting that the flows have to greater than the output but it was a state mandate.