SFM Medical Director Dr. Dan Janiga and SFM physician Dr. Beth Baker recently were elected officers of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

Janiga was installed as speaker-elect to the ACOEM's House of Delegates. Baker was elected to a two-year term as secretary-treasurer. Both also serve on the ACOEM Board of Directors.

ACOEM, the nation's largest medical society, promotes the health of workers through preventive medicine, clinical care, research and education. The House of Delegates is ACOEM's legislative arm, which makes recommendations to the ACOEM board on policy matters.

Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska enacted laws this year banning text messaging while driving.

The new laws place them among 26 states with bans on texting while driving.

Current Minnesota law bans texting for all drivers and bans all cell phone use for drivers under age 18 who are operating with a learner or provisional license, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The new laws in Wisconsin, Iowa and Nebraska become effective later this year. The Nebraska law makes texting a secondary offense, so a driver must first be pulled over for a primary offense.

As an agent advising employers on safety practices, you may want to suggest that they educate employee drivers about the texting bans and that they may also want to consider updating employee policies to prohibit all cell phone use while driving.

SFM recently was elected a member of the Iowa Insurance Institute, the insurance industry's trade association in that state.

The III lobbies and outreaches on government affairs on insurance-related topics.

The SFM loss prevention team presented "Safety Committees: Create one with purpose or boost yours for results" seminar May 12 at the Minnesota Safety Council conference in Minneapolis.

More than 150 people attended. They learned about compliance requirements including who must have a safety committee, who should be on it, and what its functions should be. They walked through mistakes to avoid and experienced a role play showing how and why a dysfunctional safety committee fails.

SFM offers this same seminar to its policyholders. Encourage clients to check out the Seminars page on SFM's website for dates and times.

A change to the ACORD 25 form that occurred in late 2009 reaffirms that the certificate is a facsimile of the policy and that it cannot be altered.

The Certificate of Liability is "issued as a matter of information only, and confers no rights upon the certificate holder. This certificate does not affirmatively or negatively amend, extend, or alter the coverage afforded by policies," the ACORD 25 form's revised language says.

A certificate holder will be notified of changes in coverage and policy status in accordance with the language of the policy itself. In fact, the new certificate of insurance points the certificate holder to the policy for cancellation notification guidelines and expectations.

For specific questions about the ACORD 25, call your SFM underwriter.

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