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Tuesday Morning Insurance Tidbit - PPC


InsuranceMan

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Happy Tuesday Morning Fellow ADI-ers,

     I wanted to offer a quick Tuesday Morning Insurance Tidbit for all of those looking to start a distillery, move to a new location, or open another location.  In the world of insurance there are a lot of factors that come into play when trying to obtain coverage, as well as how those factors directly impact the premiums you pay.  Today I want to focus on a topic that has been an issue for quite sometime, Public Protection Class, or PPC.  The PPC program is a tool that was developed by the Insurance Services Office (ISO) for property and casualty insurers so that they can assess risk by a rating of "fire protection" services.  The ISO pulled information from more than 47,000 communities in order to create this rating program.

     Essentially, this tool ranks PPC's on a scale of 1 to 10.  A class 1 represents superior fire protection, whereas a 10 indicates that not even the minimum requirements are available.  So what does that mean, exactly.  Well, any of you that know me or have read my other postings know that I am a straightforward, "put it into plain English" kind of guy, so here is what it means;  If you are located in a PPC 1 it means the fire department is located super-duper close to you, it has a full time staff, and you have a fire-hydrant pretty much on your property or in your building.  So if something were to happen at your distillery and there were a fire or emergency need, the fire department would probably know about it before you do and they would quell any threat of loss before it caused much damage.  With that being said, I am sure you have concluded for yourself at this point that a PPC 10 is probably not so good.  You are correct!

     A PPC 10 to an underwriter causes an instinctive primal reaction wherein they shield their eyes, snap their head back, scream in disbelief, and start mumbling incantations.  Picture the scene from the "Exorcist", yeah, kinda like that!!!!!!  Nearly every underwriter in the known universe will become physically sick at the thought of a PPC 10.  Actually, most carriers will not even entertain a risk in a PPC 7 or higher.  I have even been told that these locations may as well be on the moon.  I wrote a post about that here, actually: 

     So what does this mean to you?  It means that when you are considering your location you need to do some research in regards to the PPC.  Insurance is not usually the first thing that people have in mind when wanting to open a distillery, but it should be dang near the top of the list.  If you do your legwork ahead of time and find out what the PPC is of your proposed location, it is going to make your life much easier, and cheaper in the future.  As I said earlier, this one factor alone can affect if you can even find insurance coverage and then what you will pay for it.  Property rates on your building, equipment, and stock will be much lower in a PPC 1 then they will in a PC 6, and if it is a PC 7 or higher, well my friend, get your checkbook ready!!!!!!!

     Now you may be wondering, "OK, I need to find out the PPC of the location I am interested in.  How do I do that??"  The answer is actually very simple.  Pull out your phone, google your local fire department, give them a call and tell them you would like to know the PPC of the address in question and they will tell you what it is.  Voilà!  Mission accomplished!  It really is that easy and it truly can save you a lot of time and money down the road.

     I hope you have enjoyed this Tuesday Morning Insurance Tidbit, and as always, I am here to assist you in anyway that I can when it comes to your insurance needs.  I work with an incredible amount of distillers all over the country and I have seen pretty much everything, so if you have questions, I more than likely have answers.  Please feel free to give me a call at 307-752-5961 at any time.

 

Best,

 

Aaron Linden (aka InsuranceMan/InsuranceMan 2.0) 

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  • 1 month later...

     @daveflintstone, you are absolutely correct!  I called them today and they had no idea what I was talking about.  I would say that around 95% of the fire response departments in the country know exactly what the PPC of their department is, but this is just one of those odd cases where they simply had never even heard of it previously.  

     However, HAVE NO FEAR ... INSURANCEMAN 2.0 IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!  I did some investigating on my own and found a published list for the PPC of Honolulu from back in 2000 and at that time it was a PC3.  So I can only imagine it has either remained the same, or even improved by a number possibly.  Anyway, mystery solved in this case, and I will be calling you today!

Stay Vigilant,

Aaron

a.k.a. InsuranceMan 2.0

307-752-5961

 

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