Creating safer communities is a goal we can all agree upon. Everyone wants to keep family, home, and business safe from fires and other natural or manmade disasters, and we want to live in communities that mirror those goals. From a business perspective, fires can be especially damaging, to physical locations as well as in lost productivity, closures, repairs, and much more.
Creating safer communities
For insurers, creating safer communities is critical, too, since it’s usually the insurer who’s covering the losses. Fortunately, there are many groups and programs—governmental, professional, and public—out there to help create safer communities.
At ISO Community Hazard Mitigation, we believe very strongly that one of the most significant ways to accomplish this goal is to partner with communities throughout the United States on community risk reduction since prevention is of paramount importance. ISO, a Verisk business, has the Public Protection Classification (PPC®) program to measure the effectiveness of a community’s fire services and the Building Code Effectiveness Grading Schedule (BCEGS®) to do the same for building codes.
Insurers benefit directly from our outreach programs because when we help create safer communities, risks are mitigated, exposures lessened, and losses curtailed. Our mitigation staff visit thousands of communities every year to conduct classes and train fire departments, municipalities, and residents. Our outreach teams consist of specialists and experts in PPC, BCEGS, and risk mitigation. They offer classes, conference presentations, one-on-one meetings, public presentations, and online programs. In 2017 alone, we conducted more than 10,200 site visits in 45 states to review fire and building code services, held more than 150 classes in every state ISO covers, and presented classes at 34 conferences.
ISO works with communities
Our people stand ready to share their knowledge and experience and to work with communities to increase safety and fire prevention awareness. Insurers are welcome to request an outreach program for their staff or the communities they represent.
