Obion County blues

Tom Maguire comments on the "pay for spray" fire department. JustOneMinute: Back To Obion County

Per this report, the homeowner had fire insurance which includes a rider obliging them to subscribe to the fire service. However, that rider is rarely in play and never enforced:

If I were running this insurance company I wouldn't sit around wondering whether the client had remembered to pay the $75. I would build the subscription cost into the premium and pay the town myself, to be sure that my clients were on the town list as paid up and entitled to service.

And here is another baffler:

The Obion County, Tenn. family whose home burned on Sept. 29 while firefighters watched from their truck has insurance to payoff their mortgage but not enough to cover everything lost or to rebuild, according to the family and their insurance agent.

So they had a mortgage, yet the mortgage lender wasn't independently verifying their fire protection status?

It looks like several people share the blame for this, quite independent of the Fire Department.