Determining PPC by section/township/range now possible

January 1, 2015 / 1 min read

Verisk has recently introduced a LOCATION^® PPC^® database that allows rural insurers to assign a Public Protection Classification (PPC) code by section/township/range. The database is available in the following ten states: Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota. Many times, insurers specializing in farm business lack precise street address information. The alternative for those insurers is to collect section/township/range data. You can now match that information to the LOCATION PPC database to obtain the correct PPC and related data elements, such as the fire protection area name, responding fire station name and distance, water supply availability, and more.

As the graphic illustrates, the newly available LOCATION PPC database includes section, township, and range — address components available from a survey method developed in the United States in the late 1700s, the Public Land Survey System. Insurers record many rural policies using this method, and many of them specializing in agribusiness and farm insurance have policy books filled with those policies.

We developed the new LOCATION PPC database in response to requests from our insurer customers in rural areas. Those insurers didn’t have valid addresses for many of their rural policies and had to rely on ZIP codes and/or manual assignment methods. Now, insurers that face those challenges can match the property to the section, township, and range address components, increasing the accuracy of their PPC assignments.

PPC file examples for standard and alternative PPC risks in split-class fire protection areas.

Legend

Alt PPC – alternative PPC for risks in split-class fire protection areas

Band – the distance band, in one-mile increments, to the responding fire station

FPA – fire protection area name serving the risk address

FS – name of closest responding fire station

Water Type – water supply type, such as hydrant, pumper, or hauled water