Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz proclaimed Nov. 18-23, 2024, as Kids’ Chance Awareness Week.

The SFM Foundation, also known as Kids’ Chance of Minnesota, is a nonprofit that provides college scholarships to children of severely injured workers so they can pursue college degrees.

“We’re proud Governor Walz has recognized the work of the SFM Foundation,” said Linda Williams, the foundation’s President. “The extra visibility of the proclamation will help us continue our mission of helping students whose families have been impacted by workplace incidents.”

Since its inception in 2008, the SFM Foundation has awarded scholarships totaling $4.1 million to nearly 250 students.

The SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America in Iowa and Minnesota, and is known as Kids’ Chance in Iowa.

Fundraising events

The SFM Foundation recently wrapped up its fall fundraisers, an October bowling event in Iowa and a November “sip and shop” event in Minnesota, which also included an online silent auction.

Combined, the events raised nearly $30,000.

The foundation also hosts summer golf events in Minnesota and Iowa. This year, those events generated more than $160,000 for the organization’s scholarship fund.

“We are proud of our efforts to support these families, as they have endured difficult times and deserve something good,” said Andy Gebhard, Chair of the SFM Foundation Board of Directors. “Without the support of our sponsors, agents and others, we would not be able to help these young people. The foundation is doing great things, and it takes all of us working together to make it all happen.”

About the SFM Foundation

The SFM Foundation is a nonprofit that helps families affected by workplace injuries by providing scholarships to children of workers disabled or killed in work-related accidents. The financial burden of putting a student through college is real. Add a catastrophic injury into the mix and affording college is an even bigger challenge. We help education be more affordable for these students and their families by offering multi-year post-secondary scholarships.

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SFM recently participated in the Midwest Women in Safety Conference 2024, presenting information on virtual reality (VR) and safety training.

Held at the Kirkwood Linn County Regional Center in Iowa, the event included several safety-related sessions, with SFM Loss Prevention Specialists Jason Clausen and Toby Tortorilla discussing safety technology they are exploring.

“The implications of virtual reality’s use in safety training are certainly exciting,” Clausen said. “There have been remarkable advancements in VR in recent years, and we hope it can help employers keep workers safe in a number of ways.”

Specifically, they talked about:

• SFM’s hopes for virtual reality training
• Training methods
• Exploring virtual reality training benefits
• Virtual reality training demonstration

“VR is yet another tool employers can utilize to create a safe work environment,” Tortorilla said. “It provides the opportunity to mirror an actual workplace, track progress, engage employees and foster an open learning environment regarding safety.”

The benefits of VR safety training include:

• Training for hazardous work, such as fall protection
• Training that is normally very expensive and time consuming, excavation for example
• Training for locations that do not yet exist
• Training where errors have a large impact, such as Lockout/Tagout

“We were happy to be able to show the benefits of VR safety training at the Midwest Women in Safety Conference,” Tortorilla said. “It was a great chance to meet others in the industry and learn more about the latest developments in safety.”

Tortorilla also participated in a panel discussion relating to the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in relation to the safety field. He was able to provide findings from the research that he, and a team of SFM Loss Prevention personnel, were involved in recently.

“AI can be used in many ways to assist us as safety leaders,” he said. “AI can help create safety programs and policies, assist with ergonomic assessments, perform compliance and behavioral based assessments and bring attention to real-time hazards through wearables, telematics and other electronic devices. The capabilities are truly limitless.”

Most attendees had not utilized VR or AI in the safety realm and were not familiar with the opportunities both could provide, Tortorilla said. “I was glad to be a part of this conference, to help spread the word.”

​They came. They saw. They learned a lot about workers’ compensation.

With fall underway, SFM is taking a look back at the experience of its summer interns.

During the summer of 2024, SFM had four interns aboard:

• Lily Johnson, junior at Iowa State
• Rishabh Sharma, senior at St. John’s University in Minnesota
• Fathia Warsame, senior at the University of Minnesota
• Darius Watt, senior at Hamline University in Minnesota

This year’s goal was to provide broad exposure to workers’ compensation insurance in addition to the corporate side of the business. Instead of interns being assigned to specific teams, they rotated within four main focus areas throughout the summer, including claims, underwriting, analytics and communications/marketing.

“We are thrilled to continue introducing young people to the insurance industry and promoting SFM as an employer of choice through our internship program,” said Senior Vice President and Chief HR Officer Jody Rogers. “It’s our plan to offer summer internships for the foreseeable future.”

During their time with SFM, the group was introduced to the world of workers’ compensation insurance and how SFM handles claims, underwriting, communications, etc. They also created safety videos based on what they learned — focusing on the common workplace injuries incurred among young people. Johnson’s mentor was Sadie Zorn, Marketing Underwriter at SFM.

“It was such a joy and honor to be a mentor to Lily. She brought such fun energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity to the internship. As the summer went on, and she learned more about SFM and the insurance industry, which opened her eyes to the endless opportunities that our industry offers,” Zorn said. “A reoccurring comment from Lily was how welcoming SFM was, how friendly our staff are and how she could tell SFM was a great place to work. It was cool to see Lily catch on to and immerse herself into SFM culture throughout the internship!”

As a group, the interns talked about their experiences at SFM.

Underwriting

During the first week of June, SFM kicked off our intern rotations with the Underwriting team. This was beneficial because it transformed our brains into an insurance mindset. Underwriting Technical Specialist Jen Wolf was one of the first people to take the time to teach us workers’ compensation history, which set the foundation to be able to comprehend the syntax and acronyms used at SFM. As we increased our knowledge and understanding of underwriting, we were tasked with a handful of endorsement requests and eventually processed them.

Claims

We were able to apply our newborn underwriting knowledge and reach another level of understanding of workers’ comp. As a result of our claims experience, we are now able to apply the five W’s of who, what, where, when and why, and how they all have a crucial impact on claim files.

Analytics

We were handed a large dataset containing 27,000 claims with over 50 variables and our general tasks were to answer questions using trends we identified. We learned a lot of cool tips and tricks from Analytics team members and how to turn around projects in a short amount of time.

Communications/marketing

We learned many methods that are utilized to stay up to date on resource literature, websites and blogs. We also learned how SFM uses style guides to communicate effectively and professionally.

We also used our time in Communications to finish our group project, which was to create short safety videos to help younger workers avoid common injuries. We made our final presentation to SFM management, internship leaders and mentors during the last week of our internship.

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Don’t miss SFM’s fall event, the Minnesota Sip & Shop for Scholarships.

Set for 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 7, the event will be held at the Westin Edina Galleria in Edina, Minn.

Enjoy an evening of wine and brew tastings, raffles, shopping, silent auction and appetizers to support the foundation’s cause. Proceeds from the event help fund multi-year scholarships for Minnesota and Iowa students affected by workplace injuries.

Activities include:

• Wine, craft beer and cider tasting
• Raffles for prizes
• Shopping, with wares available from local vendors

Find more details about the Minnesota Sip & Shop for Scholarships on the SFM Foundation’s website .

In addition to the in-person event, there will be an online silent auction from Nov. 4-7. The SFM Foundation’s fall bowling event in Iowa was held Oct. 17.

About the SFM Foundation

The SFM Foundation  is a nonprofit that helps families affected by workplace injuries by providing scholarships to children of workers disabled or killed in work-related accidents. The financial burden of putting a student through college is real. Add a catastrophic injury into the mix and affording college is an even bigger challenge. We help education be more affordable for these students and their families by offering multi-year post-secondary scholarships.

View more news about SFM

The SFM Foundation’s summer golf events are in the books, and more than $160,000 was raised for the organization’s scholarship fund.

Founded in 2008, the nonprofit provides college scholarships for students whose families are impacted by workplace injuries.

“We’re always so thankful of the support of our agent partners, clients and others who contribute to our mission,” said Linda Williams, President of the SFM Foundation. “These golf events are not only a way to raise scholarship funds, but they also allow those involved to connect and build a community.”

The events were held in Iowa and Minnesota, and more than 260 golfers participated. Both fundraisers saw increases from last year’s totals.

“We are proud of our efforts to support these families, and they have endured difficult times and deserve something good,” said Andy Gebhard, Chair of the SFM Foundation Board of Directors. “Without the support of our sponsors, agents and others, we would not be able to help these young people. The foundation is doing great things, and it takes all of us working together to make it all happen.”

SFM Foundation fall events

Planning is well underway for the SFM Foundation’s fall events.

The second annual Iowa Bowling for Scholarships events is set for Oct. 17 in at Spare Time Entertainment in West Des Moines.

On Nov. 7, the foundation will host the Minnesota Sip & Shop for Scholarships. There is also a silent auction running in conjunction with the event.

See the SFM Foundation’s events page for more details.

About the SFM Foundation

The SFM Foundation is a nonprofit that helps families affected by workplace injuries by providing scholarships to children of workers disabled or killed in work-related accidents. The financial burden of putting a student through college is real. Add a catastrophic injury into the mix and affording college is an even bigger challenge. We help education be more affordable for these students and their families by offering multi-year post-secondary scholarships.

SFM Foundation is an affiliate of Kids’ Chance of America in Iowa and Minnesota and is also known as Kids’ Chance of Iowa.

SFM Mutual Insurance Co. announced today that the Star Tribune has ranked the workers’ compensation insurer as the eighth best place to work among midsize employers in Minnesota for 2024.

The Star Tribune’s Top 200 workplaces were chosen based on anonymous surveys of employees, which asked them to rank their employers in areas such as quality of leadership, cooperation between departments, meaningfulness of work, appreciation from coworkers, positivity of workplace, flexibility in scheduling, level of pay and quality of benefits.

“Our reputation as the work comp experts is directly related to the talent of our employees and their dedication to customer service,” said Terry Miller, President and CEO of SFM. “Our employees embody our culture. They are the primary reason SFM is a fantastic place to work and develop.”

The survey of SFM employees produced a workplace experience score of 4.92 out of 6. Themes that emerged from the survey include:

• The company’s vision, values and direction closely align with those of employees
• SFM employees feel empowered and able to grow in their careers
• Employees are engaged and committed, and advocate for SFM
• Pay, benefits and work-life balance are competitive compared to others in the industry
• Employees feel respected and supported

Also cited in the survey was an appreciation for SFM’s strong tradition of corporate philanthropy. In April 2024, the company became a member of the Minnesota Keystone Program, which promotes corporate philanthropy by recognizing and honoring companies that donate at least 2 percent of their pre-tax earnings to charitable organizations.

“It’s terrific to see how much employees enjoy working at SFM,” said Jody Rogers, Senior Vice President, Chief HR Officer. “It’s always been our philosophy to take excellent care of our employees, and our latest survey results confirm that our efforts are being realized.”

The Star Tribune Top Workplaces designation is awarded based on the results of a survey of employees conducted by Energage, a company that specializes in employee surveys and conducts more than 66,000 annually.

SFM has earned the accolade four out of the four times the company has participated.

View Star Tribune’s 2024 Top Workplaces webpage

View SFM’s Top Workplaces profile

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Children’s Minnesota has been recognized as one of the best hospital systems for kids in the U.S.

“Children’s is on the leading edge of advanced care for medically delicate situations, such as post-delivery for premature babies, childhood cancer and adolescent mental health,” said Amanda Aponte, CFO at SFM. “As a mother with small children, this cause is very close to my heart.”

Now, Aponte will bring her financial expertise to the nonprofit hospital group — she’s volunteering as a Community Member on the Children’s Minnesota Hospital investment subcommittee.

In her role, Aponte will collaborate with the Children’s investment team and subcommittee members on the Children’s Minnesota hospital and Children’s Minnesota Foundation investment portfolios. She started in May 2024, attending her first investment committee meeting. The group meets quarterly.

“I’m excited to step outside of workers’ compensation and use my experience to help a different worthy cause,” Aponte said. “I’m looking forward to learning more about nonprofit financials and investment strategies.”

Those investment strategies often center around environmental, social and governance matters, developing metrics to monitor asset managers’ progress toward goals.

“The mission at Children’s is to help kids specifically,” she said. “They do this not only in their operations but also in the way they invest, such as venture capital investments that bolster childhood medical advancements.”

An actuary by training, Aponte will bring the skills she has developed at SFM to the investment portfolio at Children’s Minnesota, notably her background in fixed income investing and enterprise risk management.

“I’m thrilled to be a small piece in Children’s greater community initiatives to lift up kids and families who are experiencing difficult medical situations.”

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Get expert information and statistics on why being cautious behind the wheel is important during SFM’s upcoming webinar.

Register now for Driving Safety, an SFM webinar for policyholders, set for 10-11 a.m. CDT Wednesday, June 26.

During the webinar, SFM professionals will share their extensive knowledge on:

• Why driving is the most dangerous work activity
• Types of driving-related injuries
• The claims process, including investigations
• How to prevent driving incidents and establish a safe driving program
• The consequences of a driving-related injury for the company and the employee
• Much more, including a question-and-answer session at the end

To learn more about this webinar and view past webinar recordings, visit sfmic.com/webinars.

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