Rincon Fire Chief Corey Rahn said a result of the Effingham County commissioners’ recent decision to terminate its contracts for service with the cities could end up raising insurance rates for many in unincorporated areas of the county.

Chief Rahn said that although Rincon itself would be OK, many others — even residents of Silverwood and Westwood Heights — would find themselves paying much higher insurance premiums unless the county does something soon to change the situation.

“A lot of people are under the impression that since we’re a 5 and the county’s a 4, that automatically the area that we cover that may be taken over by the county will automatically be a 4,” said Rincon City Council member Paul Wendelken. “And that’s not the case.”

The ISO rating system is based on numerical rankings from 1 to 10, with 10 the worst rating and 1 the best.

“As a homeowner, on your insurance premiums, you pay the highest insurance premium you can pay with a 10,” Wendelken said.

Chief Rahn said if the county decides to take over fire service “everything in Effingham County’s going to go to a 10. They’ve got to get a new rating and everything’s going to fall to a 10. Without major structure changes, they will not be a 4.”

Chief Rahn also said that under the new rules, if one fire station is more than 5 miles from the next one serving an area, there would have to be either 16 full-time firefighters or a roster of at least 14 volunteers for each station in order to preserve a better ISO rating.

County commissioners voted in March to terminate the fire services agreement at the end of the fiscal year, which takes place June 30. The county, which has 10 fire stations, could attempt to forge new fire service agreements with the cities or opt to take over the entire fire service for residents outside the municipalities.

“The fact of the matter is there are contracts that don’t exist,” County Administrator David Crawley said. “They have expired. Rincon has not had a contract with the county since 2006.”

The county has honored its contracts with the cities, Crawley said, and has made payments in line with those agreements.

Crawley has met with Springfield Fire Department representatives and with Chief Rahn to discuss fire services agreements. He said he still needs to meet with Guyton.

In speaking to commissioners just prior to their vote on terminating the services agreement, Rahn said a contract still might get done.

“There needs to be a contract,” he said. “I think it can be negotiated. I know as a taxpayer of Effingham County, you cannot stretch your fire service area without adding three stations.”

The city council voted to hire two full-time firefighters. Rahn said this would mark the first time in the city’s history that paid firefighters were hired. Even though they have had the money in the budget for three years, Rahn said he had held off hiring after seeing what he described as a bad situation in the county when they did the same thing.