Lloydminster city council is considering a potential cost recovery strategy for its fire department expenses.
At the Aug. 12 Governance and Priorities Committee meeting, council heard a presentation from Fire Marque about recovering some costs incurred during an upgraded fire response.
Fire Marque national accounts manager, Chris Carrier, made the presentation.
Carrier introduced the presentation and gave some background to the company and what they do.
“We have clients in New Brunswick, Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and British Columbia expanding into Manitoba,” he said. “We’ve been doing this since 2010 for cost recovery and it’s been rather successful.”
Several municipalities across Canada have entered agreements with Fire Marque to recover some of the fire response costs.
“What we’re doing for you is bringing a cost recovery,” Carrier explains.
Money recovered from this method, according to Fire Marque, is dedicated by fire departments to training, equipment and education.
According to Fire Marque, coverage for fire departments is found in most property policies and is usually included automatically.
There are some steps that Fire Marque lays out to recover these funds.
- 1. Fire Department sends already completed standard incident report to them.
- 2. Fire Marque reviews, confirms eligibility, works with insurance company and adjustors, sends checks to Fire Marque.
- 3. Department allocates funds.
Fire Marque takes a 30 per cent cut of the funds recovered for their service.
“Just as property owners have paid taxes for fire services, they have also bought and paid for fire service expense coverage in their property insurance policies. By requesting insurance companies pay those expenses insurance companies are being asked to honour the contractual, the agreement of the policy they issued,” reads a portion of the Fire Marque presentation.
For the City of Lloydminster to recover these funds Fire Marque says they have to enact two bylaws.
- Cost Recovery Stand-Alone By-law or
- Amend Schedule of Fees within existing consolidated Fees & Charges By-law
The city would have to approve the agency agreement through the bylaw and Fire Marque would begin their work.
Through their work, they would only charge if money was recovered. Carrier also clarifies no personal information is needed. What is needed, is the adjustor and company’s name. Occasionally they will also need the policy number from the policyholder to follow up.
This process of recovery comes with no additional fee to the policyholder.
“Your property insurance policy already has the Fire Department expense coverage in it. Insurance companies have calculated premiums to include cost recoveries for your fire department’s services,” says Fire Marque.
Carrier clarifies that not every insurance company or agreement will have this policy.
City of Lloydminster Coun. David Lopez says getting any recovery for the fire department is a benefit.
“If we can get any recovery for the fire department on a fire that has happened in the community from the insurance company, especially if someone has that coverage, I think for us to get some recovery it’s a good idea,” he said.
Lopez stressed the importance of proper wording for the bylaw.
“We need to make sure our bylaws are set up so we only go after the insurance company full stop, we don’t go after the taxpayer.”
The importance of correct wording in the bylaw was also a point that Coun. Jason Whiting stressed during the question-and-answer period.
“What I’d like to maybe see in a report or some links to some other municipalities and their bylaws to get an idea of the wording,” said Whiting. “I think that is the questionable piece in my mind on how to offer this or look into this without burdening a taxpayer.”
City of Lloydminster Fire Chief Aaron Buckingham said Fire Marque has examples of the bylaw wording they would be able to provide.
He also said speaking to other chiefs, they reported no issues with the service.
“I spoke to multiple chiefs that have used fire marque services for years and they report no issues, no public outcry no, wrongdoing,” explains Buckingham.
Lloydminster council accepted the presentation as information and will be brought forward to a future regular council meeting for decision.
The Fire Services Bylaw received its first reading at the June 24 regular council meeting. Council inquired with regards to fire services operating expenses incurred during a fire response call and how these are funded in other municipalities. The City of Lloydminster currently funds fire response calls through municipal levy/taxation which provides for one front-line apparatus response including four firefighters.
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