State Compensation Insurance Fund Reviews

Pros

Very good work balance and benefits! Depending on your supervisor it can be an awesome place to work!

Cons

Training is not very well done, Computer programs are impossible to work with. Sr management making constant changes including reorganizing and centralizing. Everything is secretive and just causes more errors and more work! I've seen many of very lnowledgable people be pushed out the door to be replaced with uneducated non caring people. They have no sense of team work and will come up with every excuse to not do their job!

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest and stop centralizing it's making our jobs impossible!

Pros

Prior to 2009, great place to work. Great training and great immediate supervising.

Cons

After 2009 (transition of a new CEO) many changes resulting in company-wide layoffs and downsizing.

Pros

Conquering the initial learning curve will fill your head with a vast amount of worker's comp knowledge. The benefits are nice as are the coworkers.

Cons

There is quite a bit of micromanaging, passing the buck, and short-sighted office-wide program implementations. Management does little to soothe customer concerns regarding the way the State Fund writes policies (lengthy wait and over-priced).
Moral is low due to managments numbers-based stylings that come from thin air rather than quantitative data.

Advice to Senior Management

Check your ego and stop worrying about your advancement. Research your market a little more and make decisions to actually help our customers rather than punish them. The multi-tiered pricing aspect will alienate a lot of our customers who may be at the lower end of the profit spectrum but are also low-risk. Long term results and stability are what State Fund needs. Instead State Fund is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Pros

Excellent training, open channels of communication between all employees, great for vacation/leave approvals, great team spirit/collegial atmosphere, sociable coworkers, great benefits package, freedom to do your job creatively, some recognition for a job well done, relative job security in volatile job market, flexible hours, company sponsored weight-loss and Toastmasters programs.

Cons

Almost zero chances for career growth, no change in salary structure, enormous workload, quantity over quality approach to work product, lot of people are on disability due to repetitive stress injuries, you end up covering for others' work while they are out on extended periods on disability, no overtime due to budget cuts.

Advice to Senior Management

It is too late to do so now as layoffs cannot be reversed. Work product needs to be improved in terms of quality rather than just comparing numbers. This is hard because there is no monetary incentive to offer employees. If employees are promoted based on merit rather than based on who they know, the morale of the workforce will probably be higher, consequently resulting in a better work product.

Pros

Upper management is deeply engaged and concerned with State Fund workers. We work much to make sure that education, safety, and advancement is always promoted for our workers. The company strives for efficiency and to serve California employers professionally. Our policy holders are very pleased with our product and service.

Cons

Some workers do not appreciate the management and do not work hard. They complain too much.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep working hard to make State Fund one of the leaders in the industry. The goals of senior management is making the company excellent for employees and customers.

Pros

The best reasons to work at State Fund are the benefit package, posted classifications and equal opportunies for men and women.

Cons

What use to be an employee focused company providing excellent and personal customer service has now become just another major corporation with the priorities on metrics.

Advice to Senior Management

The leadership at State Fund needs to remember that they serve the customers and more automation for efficiency does not necessarily improve customer service.

Pros

No one will bother you as long as you do your work even your supervisor. Offer alternative work schedule. Higher pay compared to other state agency. Lots of training.

Cons

With the current situation the co are closing offices and San Diego is one of them. So you either move with them or find another job. A lot of incompetent employees but mgmt cannot fire them because of the union .

Pros

GREAT BENEFITS, alternate work schedules available, mostly friendly workforce

Cons

Poor upper management decisions, dysfunctional personalities attempting to make extremely drastic structural (corporate) changes which will eliminate about 50% of the current workforce.
Pay is acceptable due to the extraordinary benefits. Nobody has a defined sense of solid or uniform work procedure. Lots of nepotism and alot of people who barely speak English clearly enough to have trouble-free communication between peers. Lots of 'lifers' and a good amount of dead wood.

Advice to Senior Management

It is hard to believe this company has existed for nearly 100 years. The way this ship is being commanded it seems it should have gone down like the Titanic long before 2011. Remeber the spirit of its founders and the State's constitutional creation of this agency before making these wildly illogical geographic change between now and 2013. Ask yourselves if this really serves your client's needs and well-being before risking the loss of policyholders with even MORE inefficiency, which they feedback copiously NOW...

Pros

Retirement package, stability (well, not any more!)
Opportunity in other departments.
Friendly, knowledgeable co-workers.
Employee services.
Self-imposed 'tightening the belt' when necessary, so as to avoid layoffs in tough times.

Cons

Pay is below average of that in private sector (made less painful by excellent benefits package)
Claims support staff slowly being phased out.
Caseload should be spread out over statewide location to ensure that adjusters in busier areas are still able to effectively manage their caseload.
Upper management is not being honest with employees and upfront with their business goals. This makes it more difficult for individuals to plan for 'bumpy' times.

Advice to Senior Management

Leave claims operations in cities closest to their clients so as to continue the customer service that has brokers happy. Stop lying to employees about trying to make State Fund "more efficient." Based on the Rand report, it is apparent that the powers-that-be at SCIF are attempting to reduce State Fund to a 10-13% market share. Currently we're in the 20+% market share. This is not the business model of a company that is actively trying to maintain its customer base and acquire more! SCIF employees are hard-working, knowledgeable people who, fortunately for you, have a high tolerance for stress. Even in the face of pending layoffs, there are individuals who will continue to come in and give their job 110%. These are not your typical "government workers." These are not sheep. These are the people who enjoy their job regardless of how often they're reminded of their obsoleteness. Sure, after all the changes, customer service will suffer, insureds will drop, but that's the goal, isn't it? The goal isn't to become more efficient so as to get more clients, like we've been force-fed to believe. I'm not sure what the point is in all of this new 'strategy,' because why would you want to cripple pretty much the only state govt entity that has been successfully self-funded since its beginning? It's unfortunate, but I'm sure that someone, somewhere is making money. Tom Rowe.

Pros

This is a nice place to work (from the professional perspective).

Cons

This is a very bad place to work from the relations inside the company... A lot of politics, employees are not happy, bad atmosphere inside. A lot of not-professional managers (in all levels).

Advice to Senior Management

My advise to IT side. Lock of the real management creating big money lose in the areas where we can easy be much more successful and productive.