The Insurance Service Office is a nationally recognized authority for categorizing fire departments based on their capabilities of providing fire protection for their communities. The ISO grading schedule replaced the Key Rate system in Texas in the late 1980s as the preferred method for calculating a community’s property insurance rates, hence the lower the ISO grade of a fire department, the lower the property insurance rates for the community. The ISO grades fire departments based on a scale that ranges from a Class‐1 to a Class‐10 grading. A Class‐10 would refer to a community that has no established fire protection for its residents and property. A Class‐1 would refer to the fire department in a community that has met all of the minimum requirements, as defined, to operate effectively as a fire department in providing public fire protection. This grading schedule is based on the following three areas:
- 50% of the grade is for the actual fire department and factors areas such as staffing, stations, apparatus, equipment, training, etc.
- 40% of the grade is based on the community’s water delivery system and factors items such as needed fire flows, water storage capabilities, fire hydrant distribution, etc.
- 10% of the grade is based on the community’s communications capabilities and factors things such as 911 service, radio communications, redundancy systems for both, etc.
Judson Fire Department is currently seeking re-evaluation to lower its rating.