St. Lawrence Recognized for Worker Safety Success
St. Lawrence’s workers compensation trust recently won a Theo Award, which honors Theodore Roosevelt’s contributions to worker safety and those who continue that work, and is one of the top industry awards for risk and insurance in the worker safety space.
The trust, called the New York Colleges & University Risk Managers Group (NYC&URMG), is a self-insured workers compensation group that includes 26 other colleges and universities in the state, including Clarkson, Colgate, Brooklyn Law, and the Fashion Institute, among others.
“This basically means that St. Lawrence and 26 other universities pool our money and act as an insurance company on our own,” says Eric Shinnick, St. Lawrence’s executive director of finance and NYC&URMG chairperson.
The model, he says, helps align St. Lawrence’s financial incentives with worker safety.
Shinnick says the board meets quarterly to ensure adherence to the organization’s strict financial controls and, more importantly, to share knowledge and safety lessons learned from across all the member organizations’ operations. The trust was recognized in the education category of the Theo Award program.
“The award speaks to the fact that St. Lawrence prioritizes our employees’ health and well-being,” Shinnick says.
Other organizations winning a Theo Award across various categories this year, with whom St. Lawrence will share a stage when it is formally recognized in November, include Starbucks, Pepsico, Wells Fargo, AARP, and FedEx.
