Sentry Insurance Reviews

Pros

Lots of potential to increase income. Full benefits as a sales employee. Company car - 6% 401K match at 100% vesting off the bat. Bonus potential is great.

Cons

Health insurance is expensive and comes with a $2,500 deductible and then 80/20.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the great work ~ better health insurance would be nice, even if employee had to contribute more, the option would be terrific.

Pros

Paid time off
Provides a relaxed work environment with typical 8 hours/day work.
Provides appropriate professional technical training for new technologies required for the job.

Cons

The head quarters is not located in a big city.
Stevens Point does not provide a great life style.
Bad health insurance

Advice to Senior Management

The management has always been very cautious keeping their employees intact. Employees have typically been with the company for few decades. The management trains employees with a different skill set to fit to the new job description as the company evolves.

Pros

They had a very good 401(k) matching.

Cons

Moral is terrible because virtually everyone simply views their existence as a job rather than a career. You never know when your number will be up and your position will be eliminated.

The health insurance was barely useable. The deductible was prohibitively high and even once you got past that, the coinsurance was still 20% which resulted in thousands of dollars of out of pocket costs for a typical family. To make matters worse, this was on top of already very high premiums.

Advice to Senior Management

Give your employees a break.

Pros

Pay for performance, protected product w/ a stable, financially strong mutual insurance company.

Cons

Very conservative underwriting - one of the reasons for its financial strength and longevity.

Advice to Senior Management

Needs to consider broadening the scope of exposures.

Pros

This is one of the highest paying employers in the area. Excellent paid time off package with very little wait for benefits to begin.

Cons

1. Extremely poor communication between upper management, lower management, and standard office employees.
2. Internal policies and proceedures are continually changing so it makes it hard to remember week to week what is correct or incorrect.
3. Very difficult to move from Customer Service to another department as the turn over rate is so high that they can not afford to lose fully trained staff.
4. Direct management sees the continuous loss of staff as almost a "behavioral issue" in regards to the staff leaving but do nothing to acknowledge that employee moral is in the dumps. Therefore shifting the blame to the employees and not reviewing the company or management practices to determine what can be done to not only better serve the company but also the remaining staff affected by the continual turnaround and overall depressive feel shared among the staff.
5. Expectations on performance objectives are not clear and change whenever management deems necessary. These expectations determine the employees raises as well as hours of the day worked.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees, what you are doing is NOT working and the only reason some of us are still here is because there are few places to go too for another job. The stress is killing your staff and if things don't change you will soon be without fully trained staff as the majority of us are looking for another job. Everyone is beaten, broken, & tired.

Pros

Outstanding compensation and vacation time. Co-workers in Stevens Point and remote offices are friendly and easy to work with. Top notch (new) business laptops. Some remote offices got very comfortable new furniture.

Cons

Starting to work for Sentry is in some regards like traveling in a time machine. This is especially true for the Stevens Point HQ but not so much for their remote offices. The recurring elevator music in their offices adds to this impression. A lot of tasks and policies are outdated. Your input and suggestions are always welcomed but will be friendly denied or delayed to eternity. That way management makes sure that everything stays as it is. You will outdate with the company over the time and might have trouble to get started with a different employer. Management doesn't trust their employees and hides behind of numerous policies.

Advice to Senior Management

Develop trust in your employees instead of hiding behind policies. Also instruct lower management to be open for new ideas and innovations to catch up to current technology and business practices. Recognize that every new employee coming from a different employer brings with valuable knowledge instead of instructing new hires to do it the obsolete "Sentry way".

Pros

The people you work with are good

Cons

If you want a place that will chew you up then spit you out, this is a great place to wrk.

Advice to Senior Management

Your are all clueless

Pros

Benefits plan is better than average if you are an "office" employee.

Cons

Poor management and very political.

Pros

Good vacation benefits. Easy to get time off approved.

Cons

Constantly changing requirements. Company refused to rehire when people quit which made it unpleasant for the remaining people. Medical benefits were not that great. Unrealistic workload.

Advice to Senior Management

Value the hard working employees you do have.

Pros

Friendly, understanding work environment. Good opportunity to gain experience.

Cons

Over worked and under compensated

Advice to Senior Management

Come up with a plan why the turnover rate is so high and fix it.