SEQUIM — If you own a home in the Sequim area, you may see your insurance premiums dip after this summer.
Clallam County Fire District 3 — which covers Sequim, Carlsborg, Dungeness, Diamond Point, Blyn and environs — will have its protection rating changed July 1, Chief Steve Vogel said Tuesday.
The rating will go from a class 7 to a class 6, and that will mean a savings of $60 in insurance premiums per $100,000 in home value annually, Vogel added.
Insurance for a $100,000 home costs about $518 each year.
So a $400,000 house that now costs $2,072 to insure annually will come down to about $1,832.
“But each insurance company is different. You kind of have to shop around,” Vogel said.
Riki L’Ami, an agent at Jim Carl Insurance in Sequim, said that inside the city limit, the rating is even lower, at class 5.
People who live inside Sequim have paid the Class 5 premiums of $463 per $100,000 in value annually, Vogel added.
Homes in unincorporated Clallam County, however, will have the Class 6 rating.
The ratings are based on a district’s ability to respond to a fire, Vogel said, and his crew has acquired equipment and opened a fire station in Blyn that have improved response times and added water power.
“We’ve purchased four fire trucks and a water tender in the past four years,” he said.
The Blyn station, opened last year next door to the Longhouse Market at 270756 U.S. Highway 101, serves the territory east of Sequim.
The firefighters there supplement the crew at District 3’s Sequim headquarters at 323 N. Fifth Ave.
Homeowners in other areas far from fire stations and hydrants face high insurance costs or, L’Ami said, they can’t buy insurance at all. Areas with a Class 10 rating fit into that category, she said.
In District 3, whose 138 square miles stretch from just east of Deer Park Road to the Jefferson-Clallam county line, no such rural places are left, Vogel said.
He was happy to announce to taxpayers that their fire district is helping lower insurance costs.
For more information about the fire district, visit www.ClallamFire3.org or phone 360-683-4242.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley reporter Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-681-2391 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
