Letters to the Editor

Letter to the Editor | Have you seen an increase in homeowners insurance?

Many of us have seen major increases in our homeowners insurance. Some of us have had trouble even obtaining homeowners insurance. While the cost of materials and labor to repair or rebuild your home has increased substantially, there’s not much we can do about that. But that’s not the whole story.

A major component of almost all insurance company’s premium setting processes involve fire risk ratings done by the Washington Surveying and Rating Bureau or WSRB. The WSRB, despite what it says on its website, is not an entity that serves the public. They get 100% of their funding from and provide their services to their insurance company clients. It is not a government agency.

The WSRB rates every fire district in Washington by analyzing the risk of loss by fire for every single parcel of real estate in the state of Washington on multiple factors ranging from fire hydrant types and placement, what the County provides regarding fire investigations, and local district fire station locations, equipment, training and staffing. I’ve obtained a copy of the WSRB report provided to Gig Harbor Fire, and I’ve spoken to a gentleman with the WSRB about that report. After reviewing the report, I had many questions, and the WSRB has answered most of them, and I’m expecting the last three answers any day now.

Without going into a lot of detail about the report, here’s what I’ve discovered:

1. Some of the data in the WSRB report is inconsistent with data at least two agencies (the Pierce County Fire Marshall and the Fox Island Mutual Water Association or FIMWA) provided to me. These inconsistencies drove down Gig Harbor Fire’s ratings, and they need to be corrected.

2. The WSRB report provided to Gig Harbor Fire contains many scores, but absolutely no detail on how those scores are calculated.

3. The WSRB report contains absolutely no recommendations on how Gig Harbor Fire can improve those scores.
Parts of Fox Island dropped from a 4 or 5 rating to a 9 rating meaning a higher risk of loss by fire. That, in turn, means higher premiums from the insurance companies. The major issue was the fact that the Fox Island fire station was not manned 24/7, but that’s changing.

I am pleased to announce that Gig Harbor Fire has already requested a reevaluation for Fox Island based on both its new staffing plans and on the inaccurate information on which the report is based. Both the Pierce County Fire Marshall and FIMWA told me in no uncertain terms that the dings Gig Harbor Fire received based on their agencies’ information were not deserved. In fact, the head of FIMWA told me he’s never been contacted by anyone with regard to the ratings done by the WSRB. I recommend you contact your own water agency to see what they might say about this.

And there’s more good news: Patty Kuderer, the new Washington Insurance Commissioner has the WSRB on her radar. She wants to learn more about who they are and what they do.

Under Washington law (RCW 48.19.300), you can, as an insured homeowner, request from the WSRB any information you may want to see from them. RCW 48.19.310 allows you to contact the Insurance Commissioner’s office if the WSRB does not adequately respond. My contact with the WSRB has been very helpful in my information gathering.

I want to thank Fire Chief Dennis Doan and several others with Gig Harbor Fire for their cooperation, interest, and efforts provided to me while doing my research. The one thing I’ve learned from all of this is that Gig Harbor Fire is NOT to blame for your homeowner’s insurance going up. I also want to thank FIMWA, the Pierce County Fire Marshall, and South Sound 911 for their assistance and interest.

Just one example of how the WSRB ratings can impact a fire department: The fire district gets dinged if it doesn’t have a ladder truck. But, the District also gets dinged if you don’t have a backup ladder truck. I’ve been told that a ladder truck costs about $2,000,000 so to avoid this ding, Gig Harbor Fire would need to spend $4,000,000. And, that does not include the substantial cost to staff a ladder truck. Gig Harbor Fire has very few buildings in its district that are over three stories where a ladder truck might be useful.

I’m hoping once the WSRB corrects the information it has in its system for FIMWA and the Pierce County Fire Marshall’s office, and, most importantly, they receive updated staffing information from Gig Harbor Fire, that some of us might see a nice reduction in our next year’s homeowner’s premiums.

Craig McLaughlin

Fox Island