Hoover Fire Department earns Class 1 insurance rating
The Hoover Fire Department has been upgraded from a Class 2 insurance rating to a Class 1, which could mean lower insurance premiums for many residents and businesses, Chief Chuck Wingate announced today.
The Class 1 rating is the highest rating given by the Insurance Services Office (ISO), which rates the ability of fire departments across the country to respond to and suppress structure fires.
Only 12 of the more than 1,500 fire departments in Alabama have achieved a Class 1 rating, and only 178 of nearly 49,000 fire departments across the country have done so, Wingate told a crowd of people at a celebration at Hoover Fire Station No. 6 near Deer Valley today.
The ISO website does not list which Alabama fire departments have achieved a Class 1 rating, but Wingate and other news reports have cited Bessemer, Center Point, Gulf Shores, Huntsville, Madison, Montgomery and Rocky Ridge as having done so. Montgomery was the first in the state to achieve a Class 1 rating and did so in 2014, according to the Montgomery Advertiser.
Hoover’s Fire Department, which started as a volunteer department in 1962, was upgraded to a Class 6 in 1968, the year after Hoover was incorporated. The department upgraded to Class 5 in 1978, Class 4 in 1981, Class 3 in 1983 and Class 2 in 1989, according to the Fire Department’s website. Achieving the Class 1 rating has taken 28 years.
The ISO rates fire departments in four primary areas:
- The Fire Department (including trucks, equipment, pumping capacity, reserve trucks, personnel and training)
- Water supply
- Emergency communication systems
- Community risk reduction efforts (fire prevention codes and enforcement, public fire safety education and fire investigations)
For many years, Hoover has had a split rating of Class 2/10, with areas that were more than five miles from a Hoover fire station being classified as a Class 10 for failing to meet minimum ISO standards.
However, in recent years, Hoover has negotiated automatic aid agreements with nearby fire departments that allow for them to assist Hoover with coverage of such areas, helping erase the Class 10 designation, Wingate said.
The Fire Department also opened new stations and added manpower in areas such as the Greystone Legacy and Ross Bridge subdivisions and has continued making improvements in other areas, such as the 911 center, record keeping and software that allows the department to better track how many firefighters respond to calls, Wingate said.
“Our Class 1 rating means that our firefighters are doing an excellent job in protecting the city,” he said.
The dispatchers in the 911 center do a great job, and Hoover has four water systems that supply water to Hoover that are splendid partners, providing as much water as the department needs to be properly prepared, Wingate said.
Previous fire chiefs Ralph Shepherd and Tom Bradley and former Mayor Frank Skinner, who was assistant fire chief prior to becoming mayor, laid the groundwork for the success of the department, and many others played vital roles in getting the department where it is today, Wingate said.
“I’m pretty proud. This is a big deal,” he said. “It’s a tremendous honor for the Hoover Fire Department. It’s an honor for the citizens and business owners — everyone in Hoover.”
Hoover Mayor Frank Brocato, who was the city’s first paramedic and first fire marshal, talked about how the Fire Department has played a central role in the city’s history. Six of Hoover’s 10 mayors have been affiliated with the Fire Department, and the current city administrator (Allan Rice) and City Council president (Gene Smith) also are former Hoover firefighters.
Even in the days when Hoover was a volunteer department, the firefighters have always strived to get better and to be leaders in the fire service, Brocato said. He thanked the firefighters for how they work tirelessly each day to protect the city.
Rice said that excellence is not an event or an accomplishment, but rather a habit and a choice. “If you choose excellence consistently, you become elite,” he said.
Rice thanked Wingate, his staff and those who have come before him for cementing the legacy of the Hoover Fire Department among the elite.
“When ISO comes to measure things, they measure things that you can see and touch,” Rice said. “But the intangible elite of the Hoover Fire Department is what gets inside the trucks, what rolls up in front of the houses, what goes into the living rooms and takes care of our citizens.”
Wingate said the new ISO rating won’t go into effect until Aug. 1, but he encouraged residents and business owners to check with their insurance companies to see what impact the change will have on their insurance premiums. Every insurance company handles it differently, he said.