Insurance Questions

INSURANCE SERVICES OFFICE (ISO) PUBLIC PROTECTION CLASS

The North Tahoe Fire Protection District has an Insurance Services Office (ISO) Public Protection Class™ rating of 3/3y. This classification was established April 1, 2018. Substantial staff time and effort increased our ISO rating from a 4/4y to the new classification of 3/3y. The first number is the rating for those properties within 5 road miles of a recognized fire station and within 1000′ of a fire hydrant. The second number is the rating for those properties within 5 road miles of a recognized fire station but beyond 1000′ of a fire hydrant. Any property over 5 road miles is a PPC 10 or 10W. The 10W would only apply to properties that are within 5-7 road miles with a recognized hydrant/water source.

The North Tahoe Fire Protection District provides fire protection to many of the communities along the North and West Shores of Lake Tahoe and Alpine Meadows. The District provides management services to the Meeks Bay Fire Protection District and jointly staffs those stations.

The cooperative Fire Districts currently have 69 paid employees operating out of eight fire stations with an annual combined operating budget of $ 16.7 million dollars.

The Districts are approximately 32 square miles with a population of 22,000. In 2015, the District responded to over 2500 requests for service ranging from structure fires, traffic collisions, vehicle fires, wildland fires, and medical aids.

The North Tahoe Fire Protection District is a small semi-rural community made up of mostly residential and commercial occupancies.

The open space within and adjacent to the North Tahoe Fire Protection District is a mix of State Responsibility Area (SRA) and National Forest, USFS. The District participates in auto-aid agreements with all surrounding agencies including: North Lake Tahoe (Incline Village, NV), Northstar Fire, Squaw Valley Fire, Lake Valley Fire, Truckee Fire, CALFIRE and USFS. Through these agreements and technology provided through Grass Valley Command Center -Fire Dispatch, the District uses a closest unit dispatch concept. That means if one of our auto-aid partners’ engines is closer to you when you call 911 than our engine is, they will respond. Ensuring the residents and businesses of North Tahoe area receive the quickest most appropriate response to their emergency.

The District was last rated by ISO in 2018 at a 3/3y. The PPC scale goes from 1 to 10, one being the best and 10 being insufficient protection. ISO has a newer product that they offer to insurance carriers to rate their susceptibility to wildfire, FireLine ™ it is a 1-30 rating schedule (1 being the best) based on the individual property’s specific characteristics, and unlike the PPC is not related to the communities available fire protection service. FireLine ™ scores and Public Protection Class grading are sometimes confused. For that reason I have included below an article comparing PPC and FireLine ™ and several other documents to assist homeowners and insurance agents inquires related to homeowners obtaining fire insurance.