Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Team Haylor Supports Community - Again!

The 2009 Corporate Challenge was held on Tuesday, June 23rd, and once again Syracuse HF&C employees laced up their sneakers, donned their "Team Haylor" shirts and were well represented at this year's event. We had 20 employees compete against over 6000 people in this year's race. Some ran, some walked and some just stayed behind to enjoy the food & drinks.

In the end, there might have been a few who realized they are just getting too old for this!

The weather actually cooperated this year and we enjoyed temps in the 70's . We all crossed the finish line at one time or another. The first man to finish the race from our group was Rich MacDonald and the first woman was Kim Buck - way to go & congratulations to both of them!!! The other Haylor participants were: Patti Brush, Mae Carter, Holly Curtis, Kristine French, Kathy Graham, Angela Hughes, Penny Kent, Maggie Kimball, Megan Motter, Tina Raschella, Karen Shutts, Lisa Streeter, Diane Viviano, Brett Findlay, Jim Freyer, Tom Freyer, Matt Patulski and Anthony Spina.

We enjoyed a before and after race celebration at "My Girls" restaurant and a big thank you to everyone who helped organize the event. All proceeds from this years race will benefit the "Hillside Work Scholarship Connection" - helping Syracuse children become better students through job training & community engagement. The donations will help "launch a youth workforce development & green jobs initiative".

Introducing our Group Benefits Department!!!

HF&C initially started the group employee benefits department with the James Howard Wayne Association back in the early 1980's, as a way to offer small business owners and their employees access to benefit packages similar to large corporations.

With the ever-changing marketplace, HF&C has adapted our group department to focus on all sizes of businesses by offering a range of products such as Group Medical, Dental, Life. In addition or group planes, we also offer individual life insurance products, long term care and disability plans.

The current staffing consists of 4 benefits producers (Dennis Cleary, Joe Sheen, Jeff Biesiada and Becky Perkins) along with Mike Grinnell, VP, leading the department. Sueann Mikitiuk handles our large group account management needs and Donna Neal handles the large group customer service needs. Kirsten Tudman was just brought on to manage the "small group" business block and both Kathy Gardner and Angela Stoutenger handle all of our small business customer service needs.

The Group Benefits department handles roughly 800 area employers, in all different types of industries. Most of our clients are in the CNY area, however, in the last few years we have been "branching out" to other states as we have established relationships with various national associations.

With the quickly changing market place and the burdens that new federal and state legislation are placing on employers that offer employee benefits, we're seeing more opportunities than ever before to help business owners navigate the difficult terrain and find ways to provide cost effective employee benefits to their employees.