Fire insurance rates at the heart of the debate over closing fire halls in Greater Sudbury

Higher insurance rates are among the top worries for the outlying communities of Greater Sudbury pushing back against proposed fire hall closures.

Karleigh Farnelof Skeadsays her insurance company told her that her monthly bill will jump by $120 if her local fire hall closes permanently and the part-time fire brigade is moved to Garson, some 18 km away.

"Absolutely shocked," said the 36-year-old mother of two, adding that some of her neighbours got higher quotes from their insurers.

"I think it's going to be hard for seniors on a fixed income and young families like mine to afford an extra payment each month."

Ralph Prentice of Beaver Lake says insurance bills in his rural community could jump by $1,700per year if their fire hall is shut down and the closest one is 14 km away in Whitefish.

"It's the greater city of Sudbury and that's line to line. So why should some pay more than the others?" he said.

"We want our fire protection and we want to pay the same damn premiums that everybody else does."

Insurance companies set rates partly based on your distance to a fire station, but it varies from provider to provider based on how much risk they are willing to take on.

"This usually only comes up when a person moves," said Anne Marie Thomas, thedirector of consumer and industry relations withthe Insurance Bureau of Canada.

"Typically it is between 8 to 13 kilometres is considered fire hall protected."

That means there are parts of Greater Sudbury, plusmany more rural communities across northeastern Ontario,already paying those higher insurance rates.

But that could all be changing soon.

The Fire Underwriters Survey sets the fire risk index for properties across the country that insurance companies use to set their rates.

National vice-president Michael Currie says more and more they are providing companies with data on the actual time it takes firefighters to get to your home or business.

"Before you had the internet, before you had digital maps, before you had an algorhythm for calculating these things, you sort of had to use these rules of thumb," he said.

Currie says those calculations will focus less on whether you're covered by full-time or volunteer firefighters (and 80 per cent of fire departments don't have full-time crews) and more on "on-duty versus off-duty" so there is "some assurance" of a quick response.

"It helps them to price the insurance better," he said, adding that it's still up to individual insurance companies how they set their rates.

"We want properties that have better levels of protection to get better insurance rates and that actually helps communities to make better decisions about the funding of emergency services... and provide the best service they can afford considering their population and tax base."

Many people in the rural parts of northeastern Ontario already pay higher insurance rates because they are a great distance from their local fire hall or have no fire protection at all.

In Temagami, there are hundreds of homes and camps out on the islands of Lake Temagami that are not covered by the local fire department.

Mayor Dan O'Marahas a place out on the lakeand says there is only one insurance company willing to take him on and it comes with a hefty bill.

"And it does become one of the issues of living in the rural areas. A lot of people can't take that risk of not having that level of protection," he said.

O'Mara said the town does provide a $400 dollar subsidy to help ratepayers on the lake purchase their own fire pump and provides training on how to use it.