ASHLAND — An upgrade in ranking for Ashland’s fire suppression capabilities could mean lower insurance premiums for businesses and individuals in Ashland, or at least  those rates won’t be jumping dramatically.

A recently released report from the Insurance Service Office on the city’s ability to respond to fires ranked Ashland as a Class 3 city, up from a Class 4.

Cities are ranked on a scale of 1 to 10, with Class 1 representing the best public protection and Class 10 representing no recognized protection.

The city was last evaluated by ISO in 1991, Fire Chief Scott Penick said.

ISO’s Public Protection Classification Program has an important role in the underwriting process at insurance companies. Most U.S. insurers use PPC information when making decisions about what businesses to insure, what coverage to offer and what prices to charge for personal or commercial property insurance.

Penick said a better classification will mean the city should avoid the likely steep rise in insurance premiums that would have resulted if the city’s classification had been downgraded.

Though classifications 1 through 4 are generally grouped together by insurance providers, Penick said there could also be slight drops in premiums for people in Ashland. “There should be a slight decrease, especially for the business owners,” he said.

The results of the survey were released last week, and the new classification will be effective as of April 1.

“It’s very gratifying,” Penick said. “The guys have worked hard.”

Penick said he thinks the higher classification is mostly the result of firefighters working well with available resources.

“It’s not so much about having a new station or new equipment, it’s about doing the right things with the stuff that we do have,” he said.

The ISO survey examines different parts of fire response. The functions of the fire department count for 50 percent of the overall score, 911 services count for 10 percent of the overall score and water supply counts for 40 percent of the overall score.

Ashland’s total score was 72.42 out of 100 possible points.

That represents an increase in all areas from the 1991 survey. The fire department score improved from 33.681 to 36.73. The score for 911 went from 5.4 to 6.63 and the score for water supply went from 27.39 to 29.17, Penick said.

While Penick said he’s proud of the new classification, he sees room for improvement for the fire department score in both staffing and training. The fire department scored 7.5 out of 15 for personnel and 5.33 out of 9 for training.

He said he sees the most room for improvement in training because there is only so much that can be done about the number of firefighters from an economic standpoint.

“To get 100 percent credit, we would have to double in size,” Penick said.

That kind of expansion just isn’t economically feasible, he said.

City Manager Steve Corbitt said he’s also proud of the city’s new public protection classification.

He said he wasn’t expecting a downgrade in the city’s classifications because of the improvements made since the last survey to the fire department, 911 services and the city water system.

New fire trucks have been purchased and a new water plant built since the last survey, he said.

In the state of Kentucky 39 communities have a Class 3 ranking and 21 have a Class 1 or 2 ranking. Nationwide, 1,998 communities have a Class 3 ranking and 653 have a higher classification. That’s out of more than 47,000 ranked communities.

“We are obviously running in rarefied air here,” Corbitt said.

The classification, however, only considers features related to reducing property loss from structural fires, according to the results released by ISO. Multiple alarms, simultaneous incidents and life safety are not considered.

Corbitt said that may also mean  functions of the fire department outside of its primary goal of fighting fires, such as the fire department dive team or its response to vehicle collisions, may cause a drop in the city’s score because those  functions might take energy and personnel away from fighting fires.

KATIE BRANDENBURG can be reached at kbrandenburg@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.