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Keeping home insurance rates low the theme of state official’s visit

2015-04-27
Photo of Wayne Goodwin
Wayne Goodwin, N.C. Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal, spoke to area firefighters earlier this month at Southwestern Community College’s Public Safety Training Center in Franklin.
 
Photo of Curtis Dowdle, Wayne Goodwin, Dr. Thom Brooks
Wayne Goodwin (center), N.C. Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal, was in Franklin on April 8 to meet with area firefighters and officials at SCC’s Public Safety Training Center. Pictured with Goodwin are Curtis Dowdle (left), dean of SCC’s public safety training, and Dr. Thom Brooks, SCC’s executive vice president of instruction and student services.

In his dual role as Insurance Commissioner and State Fire Marshal for North Carolina, Wayne Goodwin is keenly aware of the relationship between quality firefighter training and low insurance rates for area homeowners.

It’s a theme he repeated often during his April 8 visit to Southwestern Community College’s Public Safety Training Center (SCC-PSTC) in Franklin, where he met with roughly 75 area firefighters and officials.

“When you have high-quality training for public safety professionals like the Public Safety Training Center offers here, it not only saves lives – it lowers insurance costs in the area too,” said Goodwin, who was making his first visit to SCC-PSTC. “Wayne Bailey (deputy director of the N.C. Fire and Rescue Commission), who’s my eyes and ears in this part of the state, has told me great things about this facility. Everything I’ve seen on this trip validates all I’ve heard.”

Curtis Dowdle, dean of Southwestern’s public safety training, said one key factor in maintaining that high standard – and in keeping homeowner’s insurance rates as low as possible – will be replacing SCC-PSTC’s burn building.

The current structure is 30 years old, and Dowdle said state officials are encouraging Southwestern to have a new one in place by Dec. 31, 2016, in order to continue the present scope of training.

“Even though construction of a new burn building will be expensive, in the $1.5 million range, the cost of not doing this would be much greater to the citizens our area fire departments serve,” Dowdle said. “If we don’t have this training here, home insurance rates will go up significantly – and that would ultimately cost area businesses and homeowners exponentially more than the cost of replacing this structure.”

Another factor that helps lower insurance rates is the atmosphere of cooperation among area fire departments – even across county lines.

Darrell Woodard, chief of the Savannah Fire Department in Jackson County, said automatic aid agreements like the one his department has with bordering Mountain Valley Fire Department of Macon County significantly improve both fire districts’ insurance ratings.

“By working together, that helps lower our rating from a ‘9’ to a ‘6,’” said Woodard, whose department responded to 302 calls last year and is on pace to equal or eclipse that number this year. “That helps save property owners 25 percent or more on their fire insurance.”

To further assist in lowering insurance rates for citizens, SCC-PSTC held an ISO Rating Prep Course on Saturday, April 18. The course provided departments with information about how they can improve their rating schedule based on a wide range of topics from training to record keeping.

For more information about SCC’s Public Safety Training Center, call 828.306.7041 or visitwww.southwesterncc.edu/pstc.

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