Brethren receive record-breaking dividend from Brotherhood Mutual.

A dividend check of $126,290 for the year 2005 has been received by the Church of the Brethren denomination from Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company, through its Partnership Group Program. Mutual Aid Association (MAA) is the sponsoring Brethren agency for the program, which has rewarded the Church of the Brethren’s more than 400 churches, camps, and districts comprising the group (www.maabrethren.com).

The dividend check was symbolically delivered to executives of the Annual Conference-related agencies on May 16 at the General Offices in Elgin, Ill., by Dan Book of Brotherhood Mutual.

The dividend was the largest ever paid in the history of Brotherhood Mutual, a “record-breaking” amount figured upon the Brethren group’s favorable loss experience last year, said MAA president Jean Hendricks. The Church of the Brethren dividend for 2004 of $109,835 also broke a record for Brotherhood Mutual, Hendricks added. “In essence, we broke our own record a second time,” she said.

Decisions about the use of the dividend were made by the agency executives. A part of the dividend will support special denominational ministries, with $43,000 given for the work of the 300th Anniversary Committee of Annual Conference; $15,000 to the Germantown Trust to help prepare the property in Philadelphia--the “mother church” of the denomination as the first congregation established in America--for 300th anniversary activities beginning in 2007 through 2008; and $10,000 to Elizabethtown (Pa.) College for the Church Member Profile Study through the Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups.

The sum of $50,400 has gone to the Mutual Aid Association Share Fund Inc., which provides matching funds to congregations for meeting human needs following a natural disaster, health crisis, or other emergency (congregations insured through MAA may apply for such grants to aid the congregation, congregation members, or the local community). In support of MAA and Brotherhood Mutual, the executives designated $6,500 to support their promotion in the denomination. For expenses incurred in the handling of the money the General Board received $1,000, less than one percent of the total, leaving a small balance remaining.

This is the third year in a row that the Church of the Brethren has received a dividend from Brotherhood Mutual. In 2003, MAA used the dividend to bolster its operations including the Share Fund. In 2004, $50,000 of the dividend was returned directly to Brethren congregations and agencies insured through MAA, with the rest allocated by the agency executives to help fund the 300th Anniversary Committee and Together: Conversations on Being the Church; some 400 congregations received amounts ranging from $25 to $3,000 depending on their insurance premiums.

Brotherhood Mutual returns excess premiums not needed to pay losses, up to a certain level, said a purpose statement for the Partnership Group Program. The company grants the dividend if the denominational group “collectively enjoys a better-than-average claims experience,” the document explained. “We will share our profit with you in the form of a dividend.... We are not a stock insurance company operating in the best interest of our stockholders. We are a mutual insurance company, operating in the best interest of our policyholders.”

The Partnership Group Program paid out a record $1.8 million in dividends to policyholders in 2005, the company reported. Since the mid-1980s, Brotherhood Mutual has paid more than $11.5 million in dividends.

Hendricks warned the denomination not to expect such windfalls every year. The dividend “is never guaranteed,” she said. “We don’t know that we’ll get it next year.”

Source: 5/24/2006 Newsline
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