TYBEE ISLAND, Ga. (WSAV) — Tybee Island Fire Department’s Insurance Services Office’s rating has dropped from 4 to 3 — and, just like the rules in golf, the lower the score, the better.

Mayor Brian West says this means the chances of something bad happening decreases and theoretically leads to home insurance going down over time. He told News 3 that this proves that the department has come a long way. It was only a few ago that it had a full, volunteer staff.

The insurance services office looks at a number of factors to determine a department’s ISO rating, which ranges from 1 to 10.

West says the fire department has come a long way in the past few years from a volunteer fire department.

“We’re so close to the metropolis of Savannah and all the resources that they have, but we’re also kind of secluded out here on the ocean, 12 to 15 miles from from services. It’s very important that we have that we have good resources for our fire department and our police. We have good water service,” West said.

The city just approved a 20% budget increase for the department — that’s $500,000 — an investment he says is necessary.

“It’s a little bit of a challenge whenever there’s requests for budget increases, because there’s a lot of demand for budget items in a small town like ours and not a lot of resources for income. We have to look very carefully at and allow those. In this particular case, it’s paid off because we’ve reduced our ISO and should have better response times, safer buildings, and better experiences for our residents here and our visitors,” West said.

West says safety is a priority for the city right now with Highway 80 being the only way on and off the island.

“A big concern of ours is when we do need to get off the island, we don’t have hospitals, we don’t have a doctor out here, and we don’t even have like a nurse practitioner or anything like that. It is important that we be able to access Highway 80 to get people off the island and to get care,” West said.

West added that the island was recently approved for a FEMA grant that would allow a safe shelter for the island.

“This is very important because of our potential risk for storms here, and it’s creating a space where we can go in the event of a major hurricane and have an operations center. It’s in a space that’s going to be above where potential category five ocean water would would rise to. It’s up in the air and will allow space underneath for us to have fire equipment,” he said. West also mentioned that the city is planning to add on a new firehouse and station in the next year.

If you live on Tybee Island, contact your homeowners insurance and let them know about the new ISO rating to see if your insurance could drop.