Meeting with New York Central Mutual’s (NYCM) management team in the fall of 2009, it was clear to Relph Benefit Advisors that NYCM truly cared for their employees, for their health, and for the quality of their company health plan. NYCM is a property and casualty insurance company located in central New York that employs more than 1,000 insurance professionals. Relph Benefit Advisors is the largest independent firm located in upstate New York devoted exclusively to employee benefits consulting, advisory services, and benefits administration.

NYCM and Relph Benefit Advisors set out on the road to wellness with the hope of raising employee health awareness and stabilizing their health care costs, but ended up accomplishing much more than that — they succeeded in building a foundation upon which their future culture of health would stand.

NYCM’s employee health improvement strategic plan included the development of a cross-functional Wellness Task Force, best-in-class Mayo Clinic resources, on-site biometric screenings, and Relph Benefit Advisors’ engagement process with high-energy, on-site group educational and motivational employee seminars. This was the team’s focus for the first year.

NYCM’s first endeavor was to execute an on-site biometric screening event at multiple locations for 1,000 employees. They followed up with an effort to get employees to go online and take a 15-minute Mayo Clinic Health Assessment. The final challenge was to motivate the entire population to register and participate in a four-week company-wide Mayo Clinic Walk-to-Wellness program.

“I’m a firm believer that when you ‘take the bull by the horns’, you see the best results! And, basically, that's what happened with both the biometric screening and HRA campaigns. Bottom line, we care about the employees - evident through the carrot/stick and education approach. Everyone did great — Dan Elliott and Tesia Woodworth from Relph Benefit Advisors and the crew here at NYCM - also, having the support from Dan Robinson (CEO) and Al Pylinski (CFO) was a big plus!,” said Barbara Turnbull, Vice President of Human Resources for NYCM.

NYCM and Relph Benefit Advisors’ “can do” attitude and commitment to NYCM’s employees drove their first year employee health improvement results well above national statistics. While most organizations their size applaud 50 percent participation in any wellness-based program, NYCM went well beyond the status quo.

• Voluntary Health Assessment: 99% Participation
• Voluntary Biometric Screening “Know Your Numbers” Campaign: 86% Participation
• Voluntary Walk to Wellness Campaign: 80% Participation

How did they achieve these kind of results?

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