If you lived in a community with 100% volunteer fire department (ie: no career, professional firefighters at all) then you were paying higher insurance rates than you would have been paying if you had a fire department with 3 career, professional firefighters on duty 24/7.
The insurance guy I know pointed me to this: fireunderwriters.ca/dpg_e.asp
You would have had a DPG of 3 or 4.
[quote]Fire Force
For each fire hall with a Dwelling Protection Grade 1, the credited available responding fire force will include at a minimum:
3 career fire fighters on duty 24 hrs/day, 365 days/year
1 Fire Chief (required to respond but not required to be on-duty)[/quote]
And he said that any less than 3 full-time on duty 24/7 will mean higher insurance, since you’re not in a “grade 1” area. And the difference between a 1 and a 3 or 4 can be hundreds of dollars (depending on how much your policy is for).
But hey, maybe the insurance guy is wrong. Maybe the Fire Underwriter Survey guys are wrong. And maybe I’m out to lunch, as Saltybear insists.