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2010-04-06 issue:

Mennonite Church USA receives $3 million surprise

180 former General Conference pastors will receive funds.

by Everett J. Thomas

Print Article

Mennonite Church USA, successor to the General Conference Mennonite Church, will receive some unexpected funds because a mutual insurance company, related to a 403(b) retirement plan it sponsored, "demutualized." More than $3 million will be distributed to approximately 180 qualifying participants over the next several months.

The money received will be distributed to those participants with an active GCMC 403(b) account or who were an annuitant receiving payments as of Oct. 1, 2002. This date was the effective date of the demutualization.

Marty Lehman, Mennonite Church USA's director of operations, sent all qualifying recipients a letter on March 18 alerting them to the distribution coming their way. 

GCMC used to sponsor a retirement plan with the participants’ accounts invested through a contract with an insurance company.

The most recent insurance company was Provident Mutual Insurance Company. In 1996, GCMC changed its plan to one operated by Mennonite Retirement Trust. Some GCMC ministers elected to leave their funds with Provident. Following this change, GCMC had little interaction with Provident. In 2001-2002, Provident went through a “demutualization process” and became part of Nationwide Financial. GCMC was notified in October 2002 that as part of the demutualization process GCMC had been awarded "policy credits."

The value of the policy credits was subsequently reflected in a flexible premium annuity contract issued by Nationwide to GCMC. Staff members for Mennonite Church USA have been discerning how best to distribute the funds. They solicited the advice of a number of people, including several 403(b) experts and three attorneys.

Dave Weaver, Mennonite Mission Network's senior executive for finance, also assisted in the process.

"There haven't been a lot of demutualizations," Weaver said on March 1, "so there are not many clear rules on how distributions from a demutualization should be handled. Because the plan was a 403(b) plan and a church plan, the situation was even more unique. We won't know the actual final balance of the annuity contract until Nationwide terminates the contract."

In order to ascertain how best to make the distributions, staff considered the information available from  Provident, other situations in which demutualizations had occurred and recommendations from consultants.

"It took so long to resolve this" Weaver said, "because of the complexity of the situation and the lack of specific guidance available on how to handle this situation."

Staff had to work through the old plan records of participants, ascertaining exactly who would qualify as a recipient.

According to Lehman, Executive Board will retain sufficient funds to cover expenses incurred and in case other qualifying recipients are discovered. Eventually, however, all remaining funds will be distributed.

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