Pacifica Insurance: A business with a sense of purpose

For 47 years, Pacifica Insurance Underwriters Inc. has been a living testament to its slogan—“Rest Assured”—providing peace of mind to its customers when it comes to life, health, property, and during unexpected turns in life. But, more than all the services it provides for the benefit of their policy holders, Pacifica Insurance also has a generous heart when it comes to taking care of the community’s well-being.

“Even businesses need a sense of purpose.  Making a difference in the lives of others gives us a sense of purpose,” said PIU president/chief operating officer Shirley Sablan. “It is important to do business in an environment that is built around love, kindness, and sympathy, and what better way to demonstrate all these than through community initiatives and partnerships we maintain with members of our community also as a form of reciprocity.”

Sablan said that activities and programs focused on Corporate Social Responsibility has become a Pacifica “family affair,” which means they do not have a specific group of employees tasked for this endeavor. 

“Everyone is given an opportunity to participate. …Our CSR programs do inspire our team because they understand its importance.  They always look forward to the next give-back gig,” she added. 

According to Sablan, PIU has been quite active in the community and their efforts did not slow down during the pandemic. “Like many others, we were able to make the best of the situation and utilized every available avenue, however limited they were,” she said.

A year since the COVID-19 pandemic started, Pacifica Insurance was still able to extend support for programs relating to sports, education, tourism, and the environment, Sablan said. These include the Hyatt Charity Golf Classic, Joeten Kiyu Public Library Summer Reading Program, Aluf Luta Golf Classic, the Joeten DaiDai Foundation, Saipan International Fishing Tournament, PSS Teacher of the Year, Stellar Marianas 2021 Miss Marianas Pageant, the Lady Diann Torres Foundation’s Plant 500 Marianas, the 2020 Christmas Village, the Green Gala of the Mariana Islands Nature Alliance, Saipan Rotary Club, and Toys for Tots, to name a few.

That even extended to the company’s signature in-house program, Pacifica Art Contest, where eligible artists are invited to submit traditional, digital, or 3D artwork and the winning art pieces are featured in the company’s calendar and other marketing materials.

“Our art contest did not skip a beat. In 2020, instead of having a full-fledged contest, we gave a few of our favorite art pieces that were previously ranked a second shot at the win. These were featured in a reaction video we produced last year that can be found today on youtube.com/pacificainsurance,” Sablan added.

She said that Pacifica Insurance was able to have the Pacifica Art Contest full-on this year since the CNMI is managing the pandemic well and community vulnerability level at its safest at the green level. 

All entries were submitted on Sept. 24 and winners have yet to be announced. “This year… we were able to hold the actual contest, this time with the theme ‘Stay Covid-19 free!’ that resulted in over 200 entries,” she added.

“Businesses have many ways of measuring their success with CSR. For Pacifica Insurance, our measure of success in this regard is in how members of our community benefit from our support and how well it is received because at the end of the day, that’s what it was and will always be about. We’ve received many ‘thank yous’ over the years and that’s good enough for us,” Sablan said.