Community members,

The past year has been a very challenging time for many in our nation, our state and in our community.I am very pleased to start off the new year with some good news regarding your Fire District and your homeowner’s insurance.

ISO (Insurance Services Office, Inc.) is an entity that uses a classification system (Public Protection Classification) to determine the level of service that a fire department/district provides to their residents for purposes of insurance premiums. ISO does a very comprehensive study on each organization which includes examining things such as emergency communications, personnel, auto-aid agreements, response times, operations, training, apparatus and equipment, water supply and community risk, This study takes months to complete and entails a great deal of time and effort.

When the study is complete, ISO establishes a classification number for each organization between 1 and 10 (with 1 being the very best service possible). This classification is then reported to the insurance companies and plays a significant factor in determining the cost of home insurance for the residents in the response area for a fire agency.

In the early 2000’s, Platteville Gilcrest Fire Protection District (PGFPD) completed an ISO study and were very pleased to move to a classification of 5 for the towns of Platteville and Gilcrest. This classification of 5 was a great accomplishment and out of the 40,000 fire agencies in the country, only 31% had a better classification.

We continued to work hard to improve our service to the community and approximately 3 years ago, we requested another study by ISO. Again, we were very pleased as our classification dropped from a 5 to a 3! This rating of a 3 meant that less than 5% of the fire agencies in the country had a rating better than PGFPD!

Again, striving to be the very best we can be for our citizens, we continued to work to improve our service. In 2019, we once again requested a study from ISO. Recently, I received the results.

Starting March 1, 2021, Platteville Gilcrest Fire will have an ISO classification rating of a 2 for all residents that live within a 5-mile radius of one of our fire stations! Pretty incredible! To put that fully in perspective, at a classification of 2, less than 1% of all the fire agencies in the country will have a higher rating!

To achieve this Class 2 rating is truly a testament to the hard work and dedication of the members of PGFPD. Whether it is in our training, our responding to incidents, or our fire prevention /education efforts, the strive for excellence by the membership should be a source of pride for the entire community.This improved ISO rating will benefit the annual expenses of our citizens by potentially lowering your homeowner’s premiums.

I encourage you to contact your homeowner’s insurance carrier after March 1, 2021 and inquire about a reduction in your insurance premiums based on this improved ISO assessment.

It gives PGFPD a great sense of pride that we are not only providing high quality service to our community, but we are potentially putting money back into our resident’s budgets though lower insurance premiums.

Thank you for allowing us to serve you.

Sincerely,

Dan Durkee

District Chief