Month: September 2019

First Responders, Insurance & Open Enrollment… It’s All Very Confusing

Posted on by armorupnow

By Morgan Young – Vice President – Client Services, Employee Benefits – Holmes Murphy and Associates

This is my favorite time of year! The college football season is underway, the weather is starting to turn slightly cooler, and open enrollment meetings are right around the corner. I bet it’s not too hard for you to guess which one of these things is not like the others.

For those of us in the trenches, why do we dread open enrollment season? Much like fantasy draft picks, don’t we spend most of the year strategizing about our plans? We have numerous conversations about the budget, and hours of work go into making sure you have the best possible benefits in place for your employees. You’ve worked hard — it’s time to be proud of what you are offering. It’s also time to change how we present these benefits to employees.

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The Day I Got Shot Was Not My Worst Day… The Day After Was!!!

Posted on by armorupnow

By Steven Smith – Retired Assistant Chief

So what do you do when it happens? When the worst happens, what do you do? Have you ever wondered or asked that question? I wondered, but never allowed myself to delve too deep into it. That is until the worst happened.

Now I have had a lot of bad days and bad calls that have stayed with me and they probably always will. You know the ones, the ones that never quite go away, then become a part of you, even change the way you do things, but what do you do when you are the bad call? When the call goes bad and you become the call.

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Trauma… When It Comes Knocking At Your Door

Posted on by armorupnow

 

Steven Smith – Retired Assistant Chief Of Police

As a 1st responder we experience the worst of humanity, see people at their worst and lowest times. We tend to protect ourselves from all of this by just stowing it away, not dealing with it, filing it away. Well I did that and after I retired those experiences came knocking. Sometimes they came all at once, other times one at a time. I’m not sure which way was worse being overwhelmed by the horde of experiences or remembering every detail from them as they came in one by one.

I’m going to tell you about the ones that have come back to me recently to deal with. Not sure why but these are all focused on car wrecks. For whatever reason these are the ones that are requiring me to process and deal with now what I didn’t then. Some of these are the from almost 20 years ago and I’m also doing my best to protect the families that were involved, as I’m sure their pain is still as bad today as it was when they endured these tragedies. So here it goes, please excuse my typos as these are not easy to talk about.

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