Our Focus on People: Communities, Employees, Customers

Caring about people —our communities, our employees and our customers — has always been a core value for us. As we approach the end of 2020, we’re reflecting on the unique and tumultuous year. A global pandemic, demonstrations against racial injustice and unprecedented natural disasters have affected us all personally and professionally.

Our focus on people is as important as ever.

Our Communities

Our commitment to our communities is longstanding and ongoing. Each year, our employees donate millions of dollars and volunteer thousands of hours to nonprofit organizations. In 2019 alone, The Standard and its employees gave $6.5 million to schools, food banks and other groups across the country. And we recently set new records during our 2020 Employee Giving Campaign.

The Standard is also committed to confronting and addressing racial inequality and injustice. We directed funding to racial equity organizations and other activities, as CEO Greg Ness talked about earlier this year.

Our Employees

The Standard prioritizes the well-being of its employees across the country — and employee safety is a top concern. When coronavirus cases spread in March, our employees quickly pivoted to working at home. Without skipping a beat, we’ve continued to work from home and stay laser-focused on customer service.

We work hard to create a caring, collaborative environment that values all of our employees. We hope that’s reflected in our work with you.

Our Customers

We’re focused on meeting your needs and providing support to each partner and customer who relies on us. In the spring, the pandemic caused economic and business uncertainty across all industries. Customers looking to add GSI to their benefits packages put their plans on hold. At the same time, the pandemic was emphasizing how the unexpected can hit at any time and why protecting your income is vitally important in the face of the unknown.

With new business on hold, our primary focus shifted to helping our 650 in-force groups and their 21,000 covered employees maintain — and increase — their income protection. In the first three quarters of 2020, we provided $3,183,474 in coverage increases to 2,650 employees. That’s 11% more than last year over the same period.

We’re committed to the long term. We’ll work with our GSI groups to make sure they can provide income protection coverage to their employees — now and in the future. We understand the importance of flexible solutions to succeed in these uncertain times.

An example:

A law firm was planning to increase coverage on its June 1 renewal date as usual. This year, the firm was concerned about increasing costs in an uncertain economic environment caused by the pandemic. We agreed to postpone adding new lives and processing coverage increases for 12 months, until June 2021.

But this left newly eligible employees at a coverage disadvantage. Because the law firm also had The Standard’s LTD, we were able to work with our LTD team to find a creative solution. The LTD plan covered income up to 40%, while the GSI plan covered income up to 60%. We temporarily adjusted LTD percentage targets for the small number of new lawyers not yet enrolled in GSI from covering 40% of income to 60%.

This is a win-win-win – for the customer, for the producer and for The Standard. The law firm has weathered the turbulent business environment and has even acquired another firm. It plans to add 100 more lives to the plan in June 2021. 

Our commitment to exceptional customer service and supporting the places we live and work is more important than ever. We’ll continue to work with our customers to help ease burdens so they can focus on their businesses and employees.

As we look forward to the holidays and the new year, we wish you happiness, health and prosperity.

For Producers Only