Living Our Values
Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I.® 2019 Annual Report
The Church Mutual Insurance Company, S.I., part of the Church Mutual Holding Company, Inc., family of companies was built on a foundation of serving those who serve others. That foundation now provides a bedrock for our core values that will carry us well into the future. In 2019, we pulled together and solidly regained our footing after a challenging prior year. We did it by living our values: recognizing our customers are the company, being powered by purpose, acting with honor and being courageous and bold.
Richard V. Poirier
President And CEO
We recognize our customers are the company
Nothing is more important to us than the relationships we build with our customers. We exist for our customers and because of them. We strive each day to provide them with superior customer service while treating them with empathy and understanding. By carefully managing our financial assets, we ensure we are strong, nimble and always prepared to meet our customers’ needs.
Armed Intruder Preparedness
Sadly, armed intruder attacks continue to occur at an alarming rate. To help our customers prepare for the terrifying possibility of an attack on their people, Church Mutual presented armed intruder preparedness events across the nation with our partners and industry-leading experts. Nine events drew thousands of attendees in 2019.
Sensor
Saves
The CM Sensor® temperature and water alert program continues to save our customers from damage to their buildings and disruption to their missions. In 2019, CM Sensors logged more than 9,000 alerts, saving Church Mutual policyholders an estimated $7 million in damages and bringing the total estimated savings to more than $18 million since the program began.
Sexual Abuse Prevention
Sexual abuse is a highly sensitive topic with far-reaching implications and devastating outcomes. To provide our customers with tools and resources to help prevent child sexual abuse and misconduct in their organizations, Church Mutual relaunched our sexual abuse prevention offerings in 2019, partnering with industry experts MinistrySafe and Abuse Prevention Systems. We held our first live event near Indianapolis in November 2019 with attendees representing religious organizations, schools and camps. Since May 2019, 72 organizations have signed up for our online sexual abuse prevention program and 1,886 users have completed the basic level of training.
BenchmarkPortal
Proof that we recognize our customers are the company, Church Mutual’s customer service center was recertified for an 11th year as a Center of Excellence by BenchmarkPortal. To earn the 2019 recertification, Church Mutual’s service center:
We are powered by purpose
Church Mutual provides protection to organizations that do amazing work to strengthen communities and elevate the human condition. We are humbled to play a supporting role in their ministries and missions. For our part, we are committed to improving the communities where we live, work and serve customers.
CM Serves™
At Church Mutual, we firmly believe in bettering the communities where we live and work. Through our CM Serves program, our employees can take paid time off to work for causes and organizations that change lives. In 2019, 344 employees provided a total of 1,914 volunteer hours to make their communities even better.
Lifest
Since 2017, CM CARES®, the Church Mutual Insurance Company Foundation, has been the presenting sponsor of Lifest, the largest Christian rock festival in the country. Boasting daily attendance numbers of 35,000, this festival brings together people from all walks of life to celebrate, worship and connect. Bolstering our sponsorship, many Church Mutual employees – from our CEO to our summer interns – participate and volunteer at the event.
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CM Family Scholarships
To help relieve some of the financial burden that comes with pursuing higher education, the CM Family Scholars program awarded eight $3,500 scholarships for undergraduate degree programs and one $1,000 scholarship for vocational/technical school program for the 2019-2020 school year. The recipients of these scholarships must be children of employees who work for the Church Mutual family of companies.
Rich and Jane Poirier scholarship
Church Mutual President and CEO Rich Poirier and his wife, Jane Poirier, personally awarded four scholarships to local high school seniors in 2019. Awards were based on leadership and community service.
Religious Scholars
To support future religious leaders, CM CARES offers a Religious Scholars Program to assist students in their pursuit of careers in ministry. In 2019, CM CARES set aside $250,000 to provide 50 scholarships of $5,000 each. Applications are taken during the first quarter of each year.
We act with honor
At Church Mutual, we always strive to do the right thing – even when nobody is watching. The insurance industry itself is built on trust between a customer and a company. Acting with honor means upholding our end of that bargain. That commitment to do what’s right filters through our entire organization, in our interactions with customers and with each other. We embrace diversity and respect people of all backgrounds and beliefs.
Launched in June 2019, the Dialogue in Diversity speaker series brought some insightful cultural perspectives to Church Mutual employees. These employee education sessions have featured nationally-known experts presenting on topics including the Hispanic and Muslim cultures and the Tuskegee Airmen. These engaging presentations were delivered to an in-person audience at our home office and streamed live to our employees nationwide.
Furthering our commitment to diversity and inclusion, Church Mutual established the African American Pastors Advisory Group (AAPAG) to give us greater insights into the needs and challenges faced by houses of worship serving African American members. The AAPAG also helps us better understand the communities in which the pastors live and work, providing valuable direction to CM CARES, the Church Mutual Insurance Company Foundation. The AAPAG is made up of six representatives from Church Mutual’s leadership team, who join nine African American pastors.
Giving our employees a voice to speak directly into the ears of leadership, the Employee Advisory Council stretched its reach enterprise-wide in 2019. The 20-member council now includes representatives from Church Mutual’s subsidiaries and field staff. Since its inception in August 2018, the council members have worked with President and CEO Rich Poirier on a variety of important topics. The council also provides feedback on foundational business principles including mission, vision and values.
The Church Mutual Insurance Company family is dedicated to helping area students grow and learn. As part of that commitment to education, we hosted 21 interns over the summer of 2019 at our Merrill offices and one at the CM Vantage™ Specialty Insurance Company office in Madison, Wisconsin. They all brought their talents to our team while gaining valuable, real world experience.
We believe in recognizing a job well done and showing our employees that we appreciate them when they go above and beyond. And our employees do a lot of great things! Our Applause employee recognition program presented 1,186 rewards in 2019. Of those, 14 were Diamond Rewards, earning each recipient $1,000 and dinner with President and CEO Rich Poirier and other senior leaders.
In furthering our commitment to being a top workplace and offering a strong work/life balance, Church Mutual expanded our employee benefits for 2019.
Paid parental leave was a new benefit that’s been warmly welcomed by employees. The benefit provides employees, male or female, with paid time off to care for and bond with their new child. The benefit provides six weeks of paid base salary for birth, adoption or foster care placement. In 2019, 29 Church Mutual employees took advantage of this new benefit.
Also, recognizing that pets can be valued members of employees’ families, Church Mutual made some enhancements to our bereavement and sick time policies. Employees may use one day of bereavement leave for the loss of a pet. They may also use their sick time to care for a pet or take a pet to a veterinary appointment.
Underscoring our dedication to diversity and inclusion, Church Mutual was a presenting sponsor of 2019’s inaugural Toward One Wisconsin Inclusivity Conference. The statewide conference on overcoming barriers to inclusion featured more than 100 panels and presenters, highlighting approaches to inclusion in the workforce and communities. Church Mutual President and CEO Rich Poirier served as a conference co-chair, along with Marian College Senior Vice President of University Relations George Koonce, a board member of our subsidiary, CM Regent.
“Our goal is to create a Wisconsin where every resident is educated, embraced, encouraged and economically integrated. We don’t want to see anyone left behind, marginalized or excluded from the abundant opportunities available in this state,” said Church Mutual President and CEO Rich Poirier. “My hope is that those who participated came away with practical ways to tap the state’s diverse talent to improve our communities, build their workforce and address cultural needs.”
Richard V. Poirier
President and CEO
We developed the IT Scholars program to help young people jumpstart their careers in information technology. Church Mutual pays 100% of a qualifying student’s tuition, books and fees to obtain a bachelor’s degree in return for an agreement to work for us part-time while in school and then full-time after graduation.
Given the wide range of great career opportunities in the insurance industry, we invite college students to “think insurance.” For nine years, we’ve been selecting college students from throughout Wisconsin to join us for an all-expenses paid, three-day retreat during which they learn about career opportunities at Church Mutual, as well as the insurance industry as a whole. Many former Think Insurance Retreat participants have gone on to become our summer interns and full-time Church Mutual employees.
Church Mutual partnered with Marquette University to present the 2019 Path to Peace forum, focused on the church’s role in the civil rights movement, both historically and in the present day. Developed by Church Mutual and Marquette, Path to Peace is an annual interreligious forum dedicated to promoting understanding and peace through thoughtful discussion.
We are courageous and bold
Church Mutual is a recognized leader in innovation. We’re constantly on the lookout for new ways we can disrupt in the industry to better protect our customers. Welcoming change and challenging the status quo have put us on the forefront of emerging technologies to the insurance industry.
CM Wildfire Solutions™
We are currently monitoring more than 6,000 customers in the wildfire-prone areas of northern California. The monitoring system sends an email or text message alert to those who are in the path of a wildfire, giving them time to prepare and evacuate. If danger is imminent, Church Mutual can deploy a fire mitigation service to help protect our customers’ property. Defense tactics may include removing combustible items and applying temporary sprinklers or fire-retardant gel to the building and grounds. In 2019, we tracked 194 fires and authorized four truck deployments.
Disruption Lab
The Church Mutual Disruption Lab debuted in 2019 with two innovation challenges that empowered our employees, giving them a voice in submitting and developing ideas. Knowing that the best ideas to move our company forward come from the people who know our business best, we challenged our employees to propose innovative solutions to help protect our policyholders and increase efficiency in our operations. Hundreds of employees have participated in the process.
Deloitte Distinguished Performer Award
Celebrating our neverending quest to disrupt the industry, Church Mutual was honored with the Wisconsin 75 by Deloitte US 2019 Distinguished Performer award in the innovation category. We are extremely proud of the company’s role as an innovator, which will help keep us moving forward well into the future. Programs like CM Sensor™, CM Wildfire Solutions™ and the Disruption Lab signify Church Mutual’s commitment to being courageous and bold while leading the marketplace.
Women’s
Leadership Initiative
Constantly striving to bring new and useful programming to our Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI), we hosted a panel discussion in 2019, featuring six highly respected female business leaders from Central Wisconsin. In 2019, WLI presented its first scholarship to a Merrill High School graduating senior. The WLI board also approved expanding the scholarship program to CM Regent’s local area of Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. As WLI takes root beyond Merrill, CM Regent now hosts its own WLI events and has two representatives on the board of directors. WLI empowers female Church Mutual employees to follow their dreams, both professionally and personally.
