The 110-year-old New York State Insurance Fund (NYSIF) has an ambiguous name, but does critical work.

The fund was born out of one of the deadliest tragedies in New York City history: the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire in which 146 mostly young immigrant women and girls perished.

Three years later, New York voters approved the Workers’ Compensation Act, which required that the state create an insurance fund with rates that were as low as possible, but still allow it to remain solvent. That became the New York State Insurance Fund, the largest provider of workers' compensation insurance in New York state.

Currently, NYSIF is a self-supporting insurance carrier that competes with private insurers and ranks among the top 10 workers comp insurers in the nation.

NYSIF executive director and CEO Gaurav Vasisht discussed the founding of the organization as well as its mission and research into both climate change and long COVID.