December 2012

NJM Celebrating 100 Years

NJM Celebrating 100 Years: A Relationship Blooms in the Garden State, Chapter 1 of 12

New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company (NJM) celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2013. Beginning this month and running through the end of next year, NJM is proud to present a serialized story that tracks the roots of NJM and a fictional New Jersey company as they have grown together. Though McCutchen Industries is merely a representation of a typical Jersey-based industry, everything written about NJM is historically accurate.
We hope you enjoy. Visit ww w.NJM.com/100 to follow the story online.

Rob McCutchen frowned. He watched as his night foreman bandaged the hand of a line worker in his factory, and he couldn’t help but think about his father. Twenty years prior, the McCutchen family immigrated to the United States to start a better life, but when Rob’s father was injured in an industrial accident, Rob was forced to go to work in his father’s factory instead of pursing his dream of going to college.

Now it was 1913. Rob’s father had recently passed away, and suddenly Rob was the owner of McCutchen Industries, a manufacturer of precision steel ball bearings. As owner, Rob worried about the escalating costs of running his business in New Jersey almost as much as he worried about his workers’ safety.
The next morning Rob read in the Trenton Times about the formation of a new organization – New Jersey Manufacturers Casualty Insurance Company, eventually known as New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company (NJM). Notwithstanding the previous night’s incident, McCutchen Industries was a well-run plant with solid safety conditions and a relatively low frequency of injuries. Rob knew he had to continue to comply with the new workmen’s compensation law recently championed by Governor Woodrow Wilson, and he was eager to cut down costs as well as the lost production time at his facility while his employees were out with injuries.

Rob stopped by the home of the man who had been injured the night before to make sure he was resting comfortably. He then walked to the NJM office in downtown Trenton where he spoke with an NJM safety expert.

Rob learned from NJM that employees who were injured on the job were entitled to receive medical treatment and lost wages under an extensive list of circumstances. The intent of the law was to ensure injured employees received immediate and appropriate care while employers could avoid costly lawsuits.

Turns out NJM was incorporated by some of New Jersey’s top business leaders. Their companies belonged to the New Jersey Manufacturers Association (which later became the New Jersey Business & Industry Association), which had been formed a few years earlier to advocate on behalf of businesses in the state.

These business leaders founded NJM so that members of the Association would have access to a safety-oriented workers’ compensation insurance carrier. NJM’s purpose was to serve its policyholders by helping to reduce industrial accidents and keep employees safe and productive while lowering overall costs. To assure NJM's dedication to this mission, the founders agreed that the Company would operate in the mutual fashion so that the promise of profits to stockholders would not influence business operations – all with the hope that paying dividends to policyholders would some day be a reality.

Rob McCutchen was impressed with NJM’s vision and philosophy. He was convinced NJM was a good choice that day, and he rested much easier that night.  

Vincent Schweikert, Vice President & Publisher
973-882-5004. ext. 110
v.schweikert@njbmagazine.com

Anthony Birritteri, Editor-in-Chief
973-882-5004. ext. 104
a.birritteri@njbmagazine.com

George Saliba, Managing Editor
973-882-5004. ext. 106
g.saliba@njbmagazine.com

Lisa Fragati-Criscuolo, Advertising Manager
973-882-5004. ext. 108
l.criscuolo@njbmagazine.com

Gloria Owens, Account Executive
973-882-5004. ext. 109
g.owens@njbmagazine.com

Doug Prefach, Account Executive
973-882-5004. ext. 102
d.prefach@njbmagazine.com