Charging for Suppression??

[DKS736]

I was recently approached by a local insurance agent, asking why we did not charge back the costs involved in fire suppression. I was told that nearly every insurance policy, both homeowners, commercial and automobile provide coverage for those charges. I replied "you pay property taxes, you already pay", I was immediately told that the their position was that taxes pay to have the protection available, those who actually use the service pay for it. A good argument! My question then is, do any other tax supported fire services charge for suppression? If so, how do you determine what the fees will be? We charge for Haz Mat Incidents, based on so much for the first truck out, so much for the second, third, etc. and so much for additional hours required. Is this a fair way of billing?
I would be very interested in any feed back from Departments that currently charge or have at any time.

[TriTownship600]

We charge $150.00 per truck. Grass truck or engine it doesn?t matter. Fire or MVA gets at least one truck. Yes, many insurance companies pay, some will not. Some will not pay for our services but will pay other departments that assisted ours. Our department does not levy fire protection tax.

[jstafrftr]

We are tax supported, but we charge non-residents for services. Our district includes an interstate highway, which accounts for a large number of our calls, most of which are for persons who do not pay taxes to us. We charge $150.00 per hour for pumper/rescue trucks, and $35.00 per man hour. These charges are set by Illinois state law.
Also, Illinois law caps the fees for DUI related calls at $500.00. If a resident has started a fire illegally, he will probably get a bill, also.

Since we started billing these non residents in 2001, we have collected about $20,000.00 in fees. Most insurance companies don't have a problem with paying.