When you use a third-party service to pay your workers’ compensation premium, your payment can be delayed. If this causes a late payment, it can start the policy cancellation process.
To avoid delays, we recommend paying bills to SFM directly through the SFM website. When you pay on our website with your bank account, any installment fees are waived, and you can set up AutoPay so future bills are paid automatically on the due date.
SFM is not affiliated with any third-party bill paying services.
Wisconsin-based Loss Prevention Specialist Carl Gruber received SFM’s most prestigious service excellence award for 2022.
The Richard J. Marshik Service Excellence Award goes to one SFM employee annually who exemplifies the level of service that has become SFM’s hallmark.
Gruber’s passion and dedication to providing incredible service to policyholders, workers and his team helped earn him the award. He regularly goes above and beyond to ensure that all customers are 100% satisfied, focuses on building and fostering solid relationships, takes a hands-on approach, regularly offers coworkers assistance, communicates well with customers of all types, and has a positive personality that is “infectious.”
Gruber’s job is to help SFM policyholders reduce or eliminate workplace injuries. He offers each customer a truly unique experience that focuses on the employer’s individual risks. Policyholders rave about how easy he is to work with and how he’s able to motivate employees to work safely. His warm, enduring and sincere nature tears down any barriers or apprehensions. People take precedence over policy, resulting in a safer work environment for policyholders.
“Not a working day goes by where Carl doesn’t make me smile or feel appreciated,” said one of his award nominators. “The Dick Marshik Award is the ultimate recognition an SFM employee can receive. I don’t know another SFM employee that deserves such recognition more than my coworker and good friend, Carl Gruber.”
Elyse Porter is a member of SFM’s newest class of claims trainees, which started in June of 2022. She now handles claims as part of our Small Business Accounts team.
SFM’s claims training program helps recent graduates and those changing careers get into the field of workers’ compensation claim handling. It’s one way we’re ensuring that we continue to maintain our high standard of claim handling for years to come.
Tell us a little bit about your background. I spent the last 10 years of my career being a preschool teacher. I was living in an early education environment throughout the pandemic and then decided I needed to make a change. I have a family connection to an SFM employee who let me know about the training program. It was the right time to make the change and she had nothing but good things to say about SFM.
Is there anything you’ve been able to carry through from your preschool teaching experience that relates to your current role? Most of teaching 4- and 5-year-olds is related to social emotional learning and the idea that we as humans need to be taught how to self-regulate and deal with the natural emotional swings that humans have throughout the day. When helping people, especially people who are going through really challenging moments in their lives, it’s extraordinarily helpful to have the background to think, “This is a person experiencing this emotion. This explains their behavior.” And, “This then is how I need to meet them in this moment,” to help them traverse what is a really complicated system when you’re not usually in it.
How would you describe your role in a nutshell? I tend to say that I am someone who helps people navigate the workers’ comp system. My job is to help ensure that workers can understand and get access to the things they need to recover, and also to help employers through the process. Especially in small business, this is potentially their first claim ever, so they have no experience with this system as a whole. It is a lot of teaching in that I am walking people through an entirely new system that they’re unfamiliar with, but has really substantial impacts on, especially the worker — their health, their well-being, their family’s well-being. It has really substantial impacts on their daily life.
Is there a time that stands out to you when your job was particularly rewarding? I got an email last week from an employee who recently had surgery and is now experiencing the wage-loss benefits of workers’ comp for the first time in her career. She has been in her career for decades and she sent me this really kind email just saying that she really appreciates how competent I am and that it’s made her experience better. There’s not much better than being able to meet someone in a challenging moment and making their life easier instead of adding burdens onto their plate.
What do you like about your job? I like the variation from day to day. There’s a joke within the claims community that there is no concrete answer because every claim is different. The reality is that I can have employees with very similar injuries in similar time frames and there’s very little overlap as far as how their claims progress or what is needed with each claim, and I like that variation. I like that every day is a little bit different, but I can still make substantial and meaningful impacts in people’s daily lives.
What’s most challenging about your job? I think the challenging bits are trying to meet people’s needs from a distance. In my prior job, I was in person. If a family, a child had an issue, I was able to build rapport in person and have meaningful conversations face to face. With this job that’s not what it is. I’m trying to build rapport and meet needs through the phone or an email and that’s a different process and just requires a little bit of a different response to it.
What words of wisdom do you have for employers? I think earlier is always easier, so the sooner things are reported, the easier it is to allow things to progress in an easier fashion for all parties. Also, it’s OK to not know the system. I’m here to help you navigate the system. It’s complicated and really varies from case to case. Even if it is your first claim or it’s your 10th, but this one’s different, it’s OK to not know. It’s OK to rely on SFM employees to help guide you through, because that that’s what we’re here to do.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. I am currently trying to complete a goal of hiking in every state park in the state of Minnesota. It was a hobby I started during the pandemic to help self-regulate and really work on my own well-being and mental health through a hard time. It’s been a couple years and I’m more than halfway through. I think I’ve hiked in 47 of the 66 parks now. I just did a long weekend the beginning of November and did nine parks along the North Shore and hiked 23 miles over four days.
The SFM Foundation’s in-person fall fundraising event returned in November 2022 after a two-year hiatus, and the results surpassed expectations. The event took in nearly $35,000, an astounding 75% above the $20,000 goal. Taking expenses into account, this results in approximately $15,000 for the Foundation’s scholarship program.
The event was hosted at the Westin Galleria Edina and included wine, beer and cider tasting, raffles, holiday shopping and a week-long virtual silent auction.
“It was wonderful to see so many returning supporters and all the new faces at this year’s event,” said SFM Foundation President Linda Williams. “The sponsors, liquor partners, donors, vendors, volunteers and attendees all played an important role in us exceeding our fundraising goal. You truly helped make a difference in the lives of the students and families impacted by work tragedies.”
Williams and the rest of the SFM Foundation team are already planning next year’s golf events. Mark your calendars for Monday, June 12, 2023, at Prestwick Golf Club in Woodbury, Minnesota, and Monday, May 22, 2023, at Hyperion Field Club in Johnston, Iowa.
The SFM Foundation provides scholarships for students whose parents were seriously injured or killed while working for Minnesota or Iowa employers. SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America in Iowa and Minnesota, and is also known as Kids’ Chance of Iowa. To learn more about the cause, visit sfmfoundation.com .
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds both proclaimed November 7-11, 2022 Kids’ Chance Awareness Week.
The aim of the Minnesota and Iowa proclamations is to increase the visibility of Kids’ Chance of Minnesota and Iowa and help spread the word about scholarship opportunities for families affected by workplace tragedies.
SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America in Iowa and Minnesota, and is known as Kids’ Chance in Iowa.
Fall fundraiser coincides with Kids’ Chance Awareness Week
Help the SFM Foundation celebrate Kids’ Chance Awareness Week by taking part in their fall fundraising event this week.
The Foundation’s in-person event returns after a two-year hiatus due to COVID-19. Enjoy an evening of wine, craft beer and cider tasting, raffles, silent auction, appetizers and shopping from 6-9 p.m. on Thursday, November 10 at the Westin Edina Galleria in Edina. Proceeds help fund multi-year scholarships for Minnesota and Iowa students affected by workplace injuries.
Whether you attend the in-person event or not, anyone can participate in the virtual silent auction. Bidding opens on Monday, November 7 through the ClickBid fundraising platform and will conclude at 8 p.m. on Thursday, November 10.
Visit the ClickBid website or text “SFMFoundation” to phone number 56651 to participate in the silent auction.
Jeremy Brandt has worked in SFM’s premium audit department for 15 years, starting as an Internal Premium Auditor and now serving as Premium Audit Technical Specialist. We asked him about his background and his role at SFM.
How did you get into the premium audit field? There wasn’t anything that really drove me to insurance. I was just out of college looking for a job and that’s when I came across a medical underwriting job. After a short time in that role, I found an entry-level position as an auditor at SFM, and it ended up working out.
How would you describe your role in a nutshell? As the Audit Technical Specialist, I’m the go-to person when underwriters have class code questions, or other auditors have questions about classifications or rules or anything like that. If I don’t know it off hand, I do the research and find it for them. I also do some internal, electronic and external audits and then handle any vendor audits and additional projects that the team has, so it’s kind of a wide array.
Is there a time that stands out to you when your job was particularly rewarding? Anytime I am able to help other coworkers if their workload gets too overwhelming and keep them a little less stressed about their work. Other than that, there have been plenty of times where a policyholder calls and asks for help to get something right away such as a revised audit or something like that. I enjoy just being there to help them out.
What do you like most about your job? I’d say I like the team that we have in the audit department. Everybody really gets along and works well together. I also like the variety I have in my work now that I am taking on additional projects and stuff like that.
What’s most challenging about your job? It’s the difficult audits where the decisions make a pretty significant impact on premium. Our goal is to make sure everybody understands the rules and why they’re applied with minimal frustration from the policyholder and agent’s standpoint.
What tips do you have for employers? We know everyone’s really busy, but when the auditors call for additional information or send an email, it helps a lot when employers get back to them as soon as possible. The sooner we hear back, the sooner we can get the audit finalized. When there are delays, it can lead to inaccuracies in the audit or even cancellation in some cases.
Tell us a little bit about yourself. When I’m not working, I tend to be at a softball field. I help coach a 12U fastpitch softball club team, my younger daughter’s team. My older daughter is in club softball as well, so we’re basically traveling all over all the time for softball. I think in the last year we’ve gone to more states for tournaments than I’d ever visited in my entire life before that, so it’s kind of chaos, but it’s a fun chaos.
Earlier this year, SFM established a new scholarship program designed to identify and support future leaders and introduce them to rewarding careers in the insurance industry. The Bob Lund Scholarship is named for SFM’s former CEO, who is widely known for his service to the field of insurance and his continuing passion for making the world a better place.
The group of SFM employees behind this effort, known as the Insuring the Future Committee, chose to partner with Wallin Education Partners . This Minnesota-based nonprofit has an established history of connecting students in need with the support they need to succeed in college and beyond. The Wallin scholarship program is committed to supporting students from historically underserved communities and eliminating barriers for groups that are underrepresented in business leadership roles (see page 100 of the 2022 Wallin Scholarship Yearbook where the SFM program is detailed).
“We decided to partner with Wallin because not only do they facilitate the scholarship and help us find a student, but they also provide support to students in the program throughout their college career,” said Insuring the Future Committee chair Carl Gruber. “They’re committed to supporting their students and helping them succeed.”
Meet the first Bob Lund Scholar
The inaugural Bob Lund Scholarship recipient, Van Nguyen, started this fall at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities as a first-year student.
The major Nguyen has chosen to pursue is Finance, Operations Management. She graduated from Robbinsdale Cooper High School in 2022, having distinguished herself through both academics and extracurricular achievements. The plan is to award Nguyen a scholarship through all four years of school, as long as she stays compliant with the program’s requirements.
In her scholarship application, Nguyen shared: “I believe that a successful college experience would be being able to find out who you are as you’re developing so many new skills and academic enrichments while learning about your interests.”
In addition to sponsoring Nguyen, the Insuring the Future Committee plans to support a new student each year, aiming to provide scholarships for four students at a time. The committee is also working on starting an internship open to Wallin Scholars.
The SFM Foundation started out in 2008, with a mission to ease the burdens on families affected by workplace accidents. Fourteen years and three million dollars later, SFM Foundation scholarships are changing lives by making college possible for students in need.
In May, the Foundation’s annual Iowa golf event saw record turnout and received rave reviews from participants. The Foundation’s Minnesota golf outing in June has become one of the largest charity golf tournaments in the state, and this year’s event did not disappoint! These annual Golfing for Scholarships tournaments are the primary source of fundraising for the scholarship fund, and support from the community has never been stronger. Combined, this year’s golf events raised approximately $325,000 for the Foundation’s scholarship program.
This fall brings yet another opportunity to support the Foundation, with the popular live fall fundraising event returning to the calendar in November. The in-person event is scheduled for Thursday, November 10, at the Westin Edina Galleria in Edina, Minnesota, near SFM’s Bloomington headquarters. The live event will feature wine and craft beer tasting, a silent auction, raffles, shopping, appetizers and more. The Foundation is also planning a virtual silent auction November 7-10. Visit sfmfoundation.com to learn more about these fun ways to support a great cause.
Since its inception in 2008, the Foundation’s scholarships have helped 216 students pursue higher education, including the 13 new recipients announced this summer. Generous support from event sponsors and donors over the years has allowed the Foundation to grant scholarships totaling more than $3.2 million.
The SFM Foundation provides scholarships for students whose parents were seriously injured or killed while working for Minnesota or Iowa employers. SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America in Iowa and Minnesota, and is also known as Kids’ Chance of Iowa. To learn more about the cause, visit sfmfoundation.com .
Wisconsin-based Marketing Underwriter Specialist Rick Spaulding has worked at SFM for nine years, and in the insurance industry for 16 years. We asked Rick a few questions about his role and his background.
What was your first job in the insurance industry?
Back in 2006, I was hired by another insurance carrier as an underwriting trainee. I sometimes look back and wonder where I would be today had I not gotten that job — probably not in the insurance world. It is just kind of neat how one little decision can really affect the rest of your life.
How would you describe your role at SFM?
It’s a little bit more complicated than a traditional underwriter because we are marketing underwriters here at SFM — so it’s a dual role. As an underwriter, I assess risk by determining insurability and then pricing. The other side of it, which is the side I think I gravitate toward and enjoy the most, is developing relationships with independent agents. When you work with somebody who you’ve gotten to know over the years and you help them succeed, and they help you succeed, and then we see our policyholders succeed by experiencing favorable loss experience, it just gives me a feeling that I’m having an impact.
How is SFM different from other carriers that you’ve worked with?
I’ve worked with other carriers both as an employee and an independent insurance agent. I would say that SFM stands out the most from other carriers in our service level. We’re a lot more hands-on than most. The fact we’re in a dual role as marketing underwriters is also unique in the field. Being a marketing underwriter at SFM, I’m able to not only develop those relationships and make promises, I’m able to fulfill those promises and follow through with what I say I’m going to do.
Is there a time that stands out to you when your job was particularly rewarding?
This past year when a survey from one of our agent partners showed us among their top preferred carriers, that was very rewarding. It was really a testament to the hard work we’ve been putting in over the last decade. To see those survey results just praising how much they love working with our claims department, our loss prevention department, and working with me on renewals and new business just made me feel really good about all of the hard work that we’ve put in.
On a related note, we’re part of the Wisconsin Assisted Living Association, and when we’re at their annual conference, numerous policyholders come up to us and thank us for what we do. They mention all the loss prevention services we provide them and how well our claim reps handled certain claims, and just really express how much they enjoy working with us. That’s a really, really neat experience to see coming from the customer.
What do you like most about your job?
I love having the ability to make decisions. I’ve worked myself to a point now where my manager trusts the decisions that I make, and I trust him as well, and we have open communication.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I kind of have a crazy household. There are six of us – including four kids, so it makes for interesting and fun times. We’re constantly busy doing sports and being involved with the school. My unique hobby that I’ve taken up in the last year is Brazilian jiujitsu, and it has really just given me something to push myself outside of my comfort zone.
Sarah Hunter was recently promoted to SFM’s Vice President, Claims, and previously worked as Staff Counsel with SFM’s in-house law firm. We asked Sarah about her new role and her background.
How would you describe your role at SFM?
My job is about looking at the claim process more broadly and making sure that our claim representatives have the resources to handle claims in the most effective way for good outcomes — not only for the injured worker, but for the policyholder as well.
You’ve been in the workers’ compensation industry for a while now. What do you like about the industry?
I think it’s the wide variety of things that you come across in workers’ compensation. You see claims from every industry in the workforce and there’s always something different. You get such a variety of challenges with workers’ compensation. It’s also rewarding because usually we’re coming across people during some of the hardest times — after they’ve been hurt at work — and there’s that ability to help them through that.
What words of wisdom do you have for employers on managing workers’ compensation claims?
From what I’ve seen, one of the biggest factors in a good outcome is the employer’s investment in that injured worker. That includes things like showing concern if they’ve been hurt. A lot of claims go to litigation when employees feel like their employer suddenly doesn’t want anything to do with them because they’ve been hurt. You’d be surprised at how far keeping in touch with an injured worker will go. This is especially true when they’re completely restricted from work because they can feel like they’re being brushed aside and forgotten. So really investing in those injured workers and letting them know they’re still valued and they’re still cared about.
What aspects of the way SFM handles claims sets us apart?
Really, it’s just doing the right thing — not just the right thing for the injured worker, but also the right thing for the policyholder and the right thing for SFM. More often than not those three things overlap, so it’s keeping all of those interests in mind and that being a part of the equation.
What do you like about your job?
What I’ve really liked so far is that a big part of my job is to make sure there’s a support structure in place for the claim representatives. That feels really good because they’ve got really hard jobs that are very important. A big part of what I’ve been doing is making sure we are supporting them and making their jobs as efficient as possible. That’s very rewarding.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I love the outdoors. My family and I are avid campers, and we like to go hiking, biking and paddle boarding during warmer months. In winter we go cross-country skiing, and we learned how to downhill ski this winter.