Home insurance rates to lower in Salisbury fire service area

Those in the Salisbury Fire Department service area will be seeing a dip in their home owner insurance premiums. 

The changes thanks to an improvement over the past four years by the Salisbury Fire Department to give better service to the residents they serve. 

The Insurance Services Organization released a new report that moves Salisbury from a 4 to a 2 in their public protection classification system.

The areas are ranked according to how they score on things like emergency communications the fire departments ability to respond to events and the water supply in the area. 

Salisbury Fire Chief Rick Hoppes said they went and got an estimate as to what the changes in insurance would be.

"We said what's the difference between a nine and this new class two and the effect was a 34 percent reduction in premium costs on this hypothetical house that we had used as a basis for formulating what the impact would be monetarily for all of the residents of Wicomico County but especially in the Salisbury fire district," Hoppes said.

Hoppes said the new ranking is something Salisbury Fire is quite proud of.  

If you at home want to figure out what your change is going to be you just have to reach out to your local insurance company to ask what your new home owners insurance would be.

The ranking is then used for insurance companies to help underwrite insurance premiums.