Mobile (AL) Fire Department to Ramp Up Services to Allow Homeowners Enjoy Insurance Discounts
The city of Mobile and the local fire departments have ramped up efforts to bring down the fire risks in the city so that homeowners can enjoy insurance discounts.
Homeowners in Mobile (Alabama) have a new ally in their fight against burgeoning home insurance premium rates that are partly affected by the perceived fire risk of their properties. The city of Mobile and the local fire departments have ramped up efforts to bring down the fire risks in the city so that homeowners can enjoy insurance discounts. To understand how these efforts will benefit homeowners, it is critical to delve into the motives of insurance carriers and what prompts them to set the premium prices.
The Fire Risks of Residential Properties in Mobile
According to the National Fire Protection Association, every year firefighters respond to more than 350,000 residential fires across the country. These fires cause about $7 billion worth of property damage, thousands of fatalities, many more injuries, and medical expenses close to $8 billion.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cooking and alcohol use are the leading causes of home fires and most fires occur during winter months. On the other hand, more than a third of the fatalities occur in homes without fire alarms. Homes in hurricane-prone cities such as Mobile additionally face the risk of fires triggered by fallen trees or snapped twigs that have damaged electrical wires.
It is thus not surprising that home insurance companies in Mobile tend to charge high premium prices for properties that do not have adequate fire protection measures installed and/or are situated far from fire houses. Many of these carriers tend to calculate the safety score of a real estate property based on these two parameters and then determine premium rates. That is why, the fire department has stepped into the arena to help homeowners notch up the safety scores of their properties.
The Efforts of the Mobile Fire Department to Lower Fire Risks in the City
The city of Mobile has improved upon its ISO score and has climbed up from a 4 to a 3. According to the mayor, the city is gearing to notch a score of 2. For the uninitiated, ISO is an independent regulatory agency that rates areas based on their perceived fire risks. The scores are plotted on a scale of 1 to 10 and a lower score indicates less risk of fire.
The city of Mobile has opened two new fire houses and has recruited scores of new firefighters in an effort to widen their coverage area. The aim is to put in place a fire-fighting safety net where a fire truck will be able to reach a scene of fire in less than six minutes. This will ensure that a home on fire suffers the minimal possible damage.
What’s in it for Homeowners in Mobile?
The efforts by the Mobile fire department to open more fire houses will definitely increase the safety score of properties in these areas. Homeowners here can then hope to have a premium breather on their home insurance policies.
For instance, right now, the real estate properties on Shelton Beach Road Extension are at quite some distance from the nearest fire stations—Fire Station 1 Lloyd J Freeman on Overlook Road and Fire Station 18 Spring Hill on Spring Hill Avenue. This increases the perceived fire risk of homes in Shelton Beach Road Extension. This is evident from the premium prices that homeowners here have to spend.
For instance, the average monthly home insurance premium on a single-family home in the Shelton Beach Road Extension neighborhood with an area much less than 1,800 square feet is about $88. This premium amount is same as that for a single-family home in Spring Hill Avenue (with a fire station right on this street) that is much larger in size. So the homeowner in Shelton Bach Road Extension can definitely hope to enjoy some premium discounts after a fire station comes up near his neighborhood.
However, homeowners in Mobile can do more than just wait for the next move by the fire department that will bring down their premium rates. They can install fire safety measures, such as smoke alarms, inside their properties to notch up the safety scores and convince the insurers to decrease the prices.