The two volunteer fire departments serving the western Pennsylvania borough of Vandergrift have resumed responding to 911 calls.
Mayor Lenny Collini said the firefighters returned to their stations on Thursday after a six day interruption due to a lapse in the required workers’ compensation insurance policy.
Fire Departments Halt Service Due to Lapse in Workers’ Compensation
Collini said the insurance policy was restored yesterday and fire services resumed.
The borough became aware that the workers’ compensation policy had lapsed on Friday April 10, which the mayor told citizens in a letter meant the policy could not be reinstated until this week.
Last week the mayor did not explain how or why the lapse in insurance happened. He has since pointed to the lapse as possibly caused by an email error during a recent staff transition, according to TribLive.
While the stations were shuttered, neighboring fire departments covered for them. Collini thanked the other communities for stepping in to offer emergency services during that period.
Workers’ compensation insurance covers the cost of medical care and rehabilitation for injured workers, lost wages, and death benefits for the dependents of those killed in work-related accidents. In 2025, five Pennsylvania firefighters lost their lives on the job, according to the U.S. Fire Administration. Between 1990 and 2024, there were 278 on-duty firefighter fatalities in Pennsylvania.
Almost 90% of the fire departments in the state are volunteer.
Vandergrift, with a population of about 5,000, is about 30 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Boston-based specialty insurance broker Risk Strategies Co. is suing two former employees and their new employer for allegedly stealing customers and poaching employees in a scheme the firm says has thus far cost it nearly $900,000 in revenue.
On March 20, 2026, more than six years after Risk Strategies acquired their family-owned Connecticut employee benefits agency and hired them, Tim and Sheena Tracy left Risk Strategies to join the Poughkeepsie, New York insurance agency Marshall + Sterling Enterprises. Risk Strategies claims that when they left, the Tracys, in concert with their new employer, poached two key employees and solicited customers using Risk Strategies’ trade secrets and confidential information.
The suit maintains their actions violate agreements that the Tracys renewed in June 2025 that prohibit them from soliciting clients for two years after leaving Risk Strategies and block them from hiring away any Risk Strategies employee for one year after departing.