{"id":70358,"date":"2017-03-23T21:29:46","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T03:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-districts-risk-rating-improves\/"},"modified":"2017-03-24T03:29:46","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T03:29:46","slug":"cortez-fire-districts-risk-rating-improves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-districts-risk-rating-improves\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez fire district\u2019s risk rating improves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=4d1a8d4d-4090-42e5-8689-992edd57da96&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"620\" height=\"544\" alt=\"Vandevoorde\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Vandevoorde<\/span><span class=\"credit\">du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>An insurance rating for the Cortez Fire Protection District has improved, and homeowners might see more affordable insurance rates as a result.<\/p>\n<p>The fire district\u2019s public protection classification rating improved from a four to a three out of 10, Fire Chief Jeff Vandevoorde said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI thought we\u2019d do better, and we did,\u201d Vandevoorde said. \u201cI was really happy to lower that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A lower rating is an improvement for the classification, which is administered by New Jersey-based Insurance Services Office, an independent risk assessment firm not associated with insurance companies.<\/p>\n<p>The rating considers response times for fire crews and proximity of homes to fire stations and hydrants, Vandevoorde said. Training, equipment and staffing hours also can lower a department\u2019s rating, he said.<\/p>\n<p>Cortez Farm Bureau Insurance Agent Karen Delay said the new rating will help improve insurance rates for some homeowners.<\/p>\n<p>Those outside a 5-mile radius from a fire station likely won\u2019t see lower rates, she said. Rates for homeowners in forested areas, such as the Summit Ridge subdivision, probably won\u2019t be lowered, either, she said.<\/p>\n<p>Other homeowners could see a small rate improvement, Delay said. For people who have their homes mortgaged in escrow, their house payment could go down, since insurance is included in that payment, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery little bit helps,\u201d Delay said.<\/p>\n<p>Even though the fire district is building a new fire station soon, Vandevoorde said that didn\u2019t have an affect on the new rating, and probably wouldn\u2019t affect future ratings, either. The new station will be in the same location as the current station, and the chief anticipates the same number of crew members and hours worked at the new station, he said.<\/p>\n<p><em class=\"mwc_shirttail\"><a href=\"mailto:jacobk@the-journal.com\">jacobk@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>lower some insurance rates<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70359,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-70358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70358"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=70358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}