Deacons' Guide to Personal Insurance

David Nakhla 0:00

Welcome to the Reformed Deacon , a casual conversation with topics specifically designed to help local Reformed Deacons . There are nearly a thousand deacons in the OPC alone , so let's take this opportunity to learn from and encourage one another . We're so glad you could join us . Let's jump into our next episode , my name is Peter Haynes .

Peter Haines 0:21

I live in the mountains of northern Arizona , I attend Concho Valley Orthodox Presbyterian Church and , by God's grace , I serve as an elder there , as well as on the OPC committee on diaphal ministries . Today , on the Reformed Deacon , I'll be talking with two OPC elders , chris Lehner and David Drake , about personal insurance . Chris is an elder at Emanuel OPC in Medford , new Jersey . Before that , he served as a deacon for four years . Chris is co-owner of a benefits consulting firm . David's an elder at Trinity OPC in Hatboro , pennsylvania , and has served also as a deacon for two years . David and Chris , along with another Christian business partner , own an insurance and benefits practice that serves both private and corporate clients . Thank you , chris and David , for taking the time to be here today to lend your expertise . Thanks for having us .

David Drake 1:11

Yeah , thank you , peter , it's good to be with you .

Peter Haines 1:13

When we think about finances and things like insurance , we can look to verses such as Psalm 24 , 1 , which says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof , the world and those who dwell therein . God created Adam to tend his garden . We also need to practice that kind of stewardship in our lives . And 1 Timothy 5 , 8 , which says but if anyone does not provide for his relatives , and especially for members of his household , he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever . This command can be accomplished by family members and members of the church caring for one another and by way of the deacons , as they care within as well as outside of the church . One of the ways deacons can help us is to guide us through difficult decisions like insurance .

Peter Haines 1:56

Insurance can be a multifaceted and confusing topic , made even more complicated by trying to manage it from a Christian perspective . We're going to try to break through that confusion with Chris and David's help , as we try to aid deacons in their work with their congregations . Today , we'll focus on personal insurance . I was able to find six types of personal insurance Homeowners , renters , health , life , auto and short and long-term disability . Does that exhaust the list ? Yeah ?

David Drake 2:27

you might consider another couple , and Chris might be able to think of a couple of additions . Long-term care insurance would be one to cover the costs of long-term care , either in a facility or to obtain care at home , and then perhaps annuities that are income-oriented , that people can't outlive an income stream if they're concerned about that .

Peter Haines 2:53

So let's talk a little bit about homeowners insurance .

David Drake 2:56

So , believe it or not , I actually have a license , but we don't really do insurance that has to do with things . We focus on insurance that has to do with people . However , I guess , just generally speaking , a lot of these things are risk management topics , and so , yes , homeowner's insurance , renter's insurance , things of that nature are important . Auto insurance and then the one that I did see that was perhaps worthy of mention , that wasn't listed necessarily be umbrella coverage , which would extend the coverage of some of these products for additional coverage , including things like protecting one legally against certain items and things of that nature . So , again , they're in the category of risk management concerning the things that we own and things that are done , and liabilities and things of that nature . But , generally speaking , we provide products that have to do with human risk dying and becoming disabled , becoming sick , unable to work , things of that nature .

Peter Haines 3:56

Okay , you know your field really well . You eat it , you breathe it , you sleep it . Someone comes up to me and says I don't know anything about HVAC and I tell them a couple things that I think are rudimentary and nothing to me , and they go oh , that's wonderful . Thank you so much . You know you've given me this great tip because it's just , it's not what we think about . So having you guys to share from your point of view , I think is going to be very helpful to guys who listen . And if you search for you know what do I do as a deacon for insurance ? There's nothing out there .

Kris Lehner 4:28

There is what we know about insurance , and then there's how does what we know about insurance help deacons and I think any of us in the church has thought about these things or experienced these things . Usually the deacon is coming into contact with something after the fact . Usually the deacon is coming into contact with something after the fact , meaning a need has arisen which may or may not have been mitigated against through the use of insurance . It's not always possible to do that , but sometimes it is .

Peter Haines 4:54

Yeah , can you talk a bit about the human risk and how you can see it affecting the work of the deacons in the church ?

Kris Lehner 5:01

So , if we think broadly about it , I guess the first category that I would think about again from the diaconal and I'm also thinking about deacons that may be involved in the budgeting process or might be involved as treasurers as well you do see a lot of deacons who act in that capacity as well , and that begins to think about . We have our pastors and we are thinking about benefits packages for them , and no one became a deacon and no one became an elder , I don't think because they thought they wanted to be an HR representative . That was not generally part of the job title . But on this side of eternity , these are practical matters that in caring for the physical needs of our people , our pastor is a person that we should be thinking about . So I think one of the things that we want to make sure that we're able to do and if my pastor ever listens to this , I hope he thinks that we did a good job for him or at least got as much as we could for him , thinks that we did a good job for him or at least got as much as we could for him is we want to make sure that if he's disabled , that his income would continue without the church having to pay in addition to it , meaning have an insurance company paying the pastor's salary instead of the church not having a pastor because they're disabled and still paying their salary . So I think we want to make sure that our pastors have good disability coverage so they experience a disability claim , their incomes would continue . And then , secondarily , I think very simply , we want to make sure that our pastors have enough life insurance so that if they pass away prior to the end of their working careers , their families are not left in a position where they now become a diaconal matter . Families are not left in a position where they now become a diaconal matter .

Kris Lehner 6:49

I don't know necessarily that every deacon is going to be able to weigh in on this , but it is something , broadly speaking , for us as a church to think about . How do we do a good job providing for our pastors ? It's probably an awkward conversation for a deacon to have with other men in the church or single folks in the church or heads of households , but making sure that there's adequate , again , disability and life insurance in our view will be preventative of creating a significant diaconal issue down the road . So if mom or dad passes away , the surviving family has adequate resource to continue financially . The one thing I do see coming up I confess I'm surprised by this .

Kris Lehner 7:33

Sometimes it's not uncommon for a deacon to be working with someone who is going or may have a pending medical issue where they might need a medical procedure done and they might be on the lower end of the income scale . They might be an hourly worker and it might not be obvious to them or they might not know about some of the health insurance plans that are offered through the exchange that they could get literally at little to no cost . That would help cover those anticipated medical procedures cover those anticipated medical procedures . So I think I've noticed that a couple times that simply guiding somebody to the exchange is helpful in getting them the medical insurance that they need . I don't think that what we just covered was exhaustive , but does that begin to address your question , peter ?

Peter Haines 8:19

Yeah , no , I think that's very helpful . The care of ministers is one of the things that falls on the elders and the deacon in the church . If we ask the question , are you covered , Do you have what you need in place ? And you know , actually take the time to ask the hard question , because sometimes it's uncomfortable Are you thinking about the future today ?

Kris Lehner 8:39

I think what David would agree with is over the course of our careers , it is very common for someone to say I don't care if they're a pastor or not . Do you have disability insurance ? And the question is always yeah , I have it click , without actually looking at how much do you have ? Meaning would that actually provide enough coverage to make sure that your family could live the way they're living today ? And with pastors in particular , we have significant portion of their pay is expressed as housing allowance and different insurance companies and different insurance contracts will consider that differently Meaning .

Kris Lehner 9:16

Some will say let's make it very simple . Let's just say $25,000 is salary and $25,000 is housing allowance . There are carriers who , by contract , will only insure the base $25,000 salary , even though that only represents 50% of the pastor's income . So those are the types of things where engaging an insurance professional to go and look at that and make sure that that contract would actually cover both and to make sure that the full in my example the full 50,000 is being covered , because it's not uncommon that someone has $500 a month of disability and is not aware that that doesn't cover the entire salary .

Peter Haines 9:58

That makes sense . Some of the people I've talked to , as we're growing this idea of checking with people are you covered for disability ? Do you have health insurance ? A lot of people say , well , I trust God he's going to provide , and I mean the end of the day , the beginning of the day . We all know trusting God is exactly what we need to do , but he has given us the means to take a look and choose benefit packages that will help us . I know I work for myself , so for me , I had to do a little more homework because my employer doesn't give me insurances . Are there things that we could talk about that maybe would be beneficial for deacons to think about in offering people direction where they can look ? You mentioned the exchange for insurance .

David Drake 10:46

Well , I think you know again , in that kind of situation , peter , you have to think about a lot of different things that an employer is not doing for you because you have to . You know you're working for yourself and things like retirement plans obviously , kind of you know , stand out and in terms of other kinds of insurance , obviously life insurance stands out as well as disability insurance . You know a lot of employers these days will give an employee a particular multiple of salary three times income to a maximum of a certain amount of coverage , five times income up to you know , half a million dollars or something like that . Five times income up to half a million dollars or something like that . And if we're working for ourselves , we have to kind of think about that for our own family and think about how much is appropriate to own and what kind is appropriate to own given one's economic situation , net worth , income level , those kinds of things . So yeah , those are all things that really need to be considered by people who are self-employed .

Balancing Faith and Professionalism in Insurance

David Drake 11:51

It is an awkward situation I think Chris mentioned it before not just for deacons but for professionals in our business within the context of the church and I confess I let people obviously know what I do , have always done that , but have not solicited business within the church . However , invariably someone will come occasionally and ask for help , and so that's kind of how that happens . So it's an interesting thing . I'm sort of encouraged that you're thinking about this as deacons in that respect , because if it's hard for a deacon , it's even more difficult for someone in the occupation of insurance agent to sort of raise their hand , because you know you really want to be seen as a friend and a brother in Christ first and foremost .

David Drake 12:38

I think I'm probably the oldest one on this podcast . I remember the days when there were all kinds of pyramid schemes happening inside the churches across America and people finally becoming so fed up that they'd said things like you know , are you my brother in Christ or are you my salesman ? You know what I mean , and so I've always we've always wanted not to do that , but at the same time , you know , you want to be available to help people if they do need help in these categories .

Peter Haines 13:07

So if a member came to a deacon , a member of the church , and says I'm so confused by my insurance policies there's so much here what would you suggest would be the first step in offering help ? What would you say ? It's very broad , very like I don't even know what to do here . Where do we start ?

Kris Lehner 13:24

If that question were posed to David or myself , the first thing that David and I would try to figure out is are we talking about casualty insurance Are we talking about ? And when I say the word casualty , I'm referring to things , not people and then if this is something that pertains to people , so if it pertains to casualty , we would want to make sure that we got a good casualty agent that we can trust to review it and to offer their commentary on it , and David and I would probably do the same thing if it was not that . So the question with insurance and David feel free to jump in when I say this , it's not generally is what I have bad . The question is almost always do I have enough ? And I don't want that to sound overzealous , but most people don't . They don't generally have enough .

Kris Lehner 14:18

If you think about whatever a person's income is , if you look at your age and say , okay , if I need to replace that for my wife and children , or for the husband and for the kids , if I need to replace that , how much is appropriate ? And that's a simple financial calculation that most professional agents can perform . A financial planner can perform that , and in our world we just say it's probably some version of the net present value of your earnings is a number we would look at for making sure that person's insured properly . But I guess , peter , the answer is seeking wise counsel and seeking a professional .

Peter Haines 15:00

Yeah , that's great . So you mentioned the word net present value . Can you define that for us lay people ?

Kris Lehner 15:07

Yeah , sure . So I used the $50,000 example before of a sample pastor and if that pastor is 40 years old and they're going to work till they're 65 , it's not 50 times 25 is the amount of money that they would need in life insurance . Net present value very simply says if I calculated how much money I need to have for that next 25 years and I assumed a particular interest rate , the net present value meaning how much money do I need today that's going to generate that $50,000 for the next 25 years . That's a net present . So it's not going to be 50 times 25 . It's going to be a smaller number and it's a calculation that someone's going to do on a financial calculator or an Excel spreadsheet . And I say it's a smaller number because most people get afraid when they think , okay , 50 times 25 is going to be this enormous number . It's really not when you factor in interest on the proceeds when they come in in the form of a death claim .

Peter Haines 16:09

That's helpful , thank you . Most of the time when I think about insurance , I think , oh , I should have done this 10 years ago .

Advising on Life Insurance and Planning

Peter Haines 16:16

So we get into the diagonal situations with elderly folks and with widows in our church . What are things that we can say to them that would be helpful , instead of saying , oops , too late , but we could say , well , you've made some choices that were good , but let's make some better choices today , moving forward . What kind of examples could you give for that ?

David Drake 16:35

I think those are really important things to address . If we could take one step back before we get to those points , it would perhaps be helpful as well . Just one note to tag onto the end of Chris's thought about the calculation involved . You had mentioned permanent insurance and term insurance in some of the notes that we've traded , and one of the notes mentioned , you know , the younger you are and the healthier you are is when it's best to acquire these things , and that's really true regardless of the type of insurance . But I guess what I'm driving at as a precursor to answering your question is these days that really are as long as you're in decent health , as long as you to answering your question is , these days that are really are as long as you're in decent health , as long as you're in relatively good health , it's possible to obtain at least some temporary amount of coverage that would cover one while the children are growing up , or perhaps until retirement time , in the form of term insurance . One quick footnote on that . That's extremely important when you know you talked about the hypothetical person coming in with their policies and saying I don't know what I have or I don't know what to do about this . One of the important things about different kinds of term insurance these days is that most policies 20 years ago would offer the person the ability , just with a signature and an extra check , to say you don't have to go through an additional medical exam or anything like that . You bought a 10-year term policy or 15 or 20-year term policy and you could keep that in the same health class for the rest of your life .

David Drake 18:11

If you just want to convert the term insurance , these days the majority of term plans don't offer that , so it takes a lot more homework to figure out .

David Drake 18:21

What are the contractual provisions in what used to be this plain old term insurance policy . They're very , very different these days than they used to be in terms of what do I do when I get to the end of them if I still need a little bit of coverage for some period of time in my life ? Also , there are folks at different economic levels , different economic places on the spectrum , and sometimes people want to leave the insurance as an inheritance for their children or their children's children , as the case may be , and so that's available as well if it's something that fits within someone's budget . And then there are folks among us who have very high net worths who utilize that to pay taxes so their family can keep the rest of the assets that they put together . But the point being that there's something for everyone along the spectrum of life insurance products , regardless , really , of where they fall in the economic spectrum , but it does take a little bit of homework to find what's best suited for them in terms of the amount and the type that's available for them .

Kris Lehner 19:24

One of the things that the diaconate deals with with extreme frequency are generally forget , insurance for a second , generally speaking , financial matters .

Kris Lehner 19:35

It's you know , I think most people serve as deacons because they want to help .

Kris Lehner 19:43

You know , god hardwired them to come to the aid and assistance of other folks or , stated another way , they may even be on the lookout for their brothers and sisters to see where a need is where they can jump in . However , what I think I've probably noticed , maybe in the last 15 to 20 years , that financial matters seem to bubble up to the top in the terms of the needs quite frequently , and that requires significant discernment on the part of the deacon as they're trying to sort through things , and usually these things present themselves as an emergency . It's usually when it comes to the deacon , it's a full-on emergency and someone needs to act in a very short period of time , and there certainly is a time and a place for that . But I do think the other , insofar as it's possible and it's not always possible for deacons to prospectively or proactively begin to look at the people over whose charge they have and begin to make inroads into their circumstances , generally speaking , so they have a sense of where folks are prior to things coming up .

Peter Haines 20:53

Yeah , that kind of touches on one of the questions I have written down is you know the church . We're members of the same body . We want to assist each other , but the church isn't a bank . The church is not an insurance policy and the deacons they want to do the ministry , the mercy of Christ to others , and yet they want to try to figure out how to be proactive , like you're saying , to look ahead and see oh , maybe this is something we can think about . So I would say , if you've got a young couple you know they're having a baby , take 10 minutes , sit down with them and say , hey , your family's growing . Have you guys thought about insurances that you may be able to get in place ? Get some term life ? Your kids are going to be in your house for 18 , 20 years . You've got college coming . You've got other things coming . Are these things that you can take a little time now , invest a small seed amount and watch it grow ? That's kind of point of a little bit what we're looking at , what we're talking about .

Kris Lehner 22:01

James in the first chapter of verse 27 , says Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this to visit orphans and widows in their distress . And we have orphans and widows in distress for a variety of reasons , not simply financial , but they're in distress because they don't have the resources that they need . From a diaconal standpoint at least my experience , you can spend all your diaconal time with widows and orphans . I mean , the issues just are never ending and it's not their fault . James puts this verse there . Real religion is this widows and orphans .

Kris Lehner 22:39

Prominently , we've had friends who were well off , who died without enough life insurance and left well-off families destitute . So the outside world would look at that situation in the house and the fancy European cars and say , oh , they're fine and because somebody didn't do planning that they could have done . You had a family that went through extreme suffering . We would say unnecessary , because God had provided the mechanism of insurance . They just didn't use it . In fact , they actually said no and we've seen that time and again .

Kris Lehner 23:20

We're not in this life going to get rid of all the diaconal issues , but it'd be nice to see one less widow and orphan suffering like this . So one of the things that attracted David and I to our work is because we do enjoy helping people and that might sound like an odd statement as it relates to insurance , but it's just how the Lord created us and it is what we do . But it is one of those things where , when you are purchasing insurance , specifically life and disability insurance you're not doing something for yourself , you're doing something for someone other than yourself , particularly with life insurance . You're not doing something for yourself , you're doing something for someone other than yourself , particularly with life insurance . You're paying money for something that you yourself are not going to see the benefit of in this life , but those you leave behind will , and the diaconate , the church , the widows and the orphans would be greatly helped out if folks were able to cover themselves at an adequate level and not everybody can , so this is not law . If they can , it would be great to do that .

Church Liability and Insurance Considerations

David Drake 24:31

Yeah , and I think , peter , earlier you mentioned you know the thought of well , you know we're going to depend on the Lord instead . And I remember years and years ago going through , I think , brohl's Holiness of God series probably a hundred sermons on that and in the middle of it saying someone had said that to him , if I'm remembering it correctly , and he said to the person who had said that , well , he's going to have to if you don't . It's something like that , right , and I think that kind of falls into the Timothy Five thought of it . And I would caveat it with what Chris said , because not everyone can do this . So it's not judging someone who's unable , but if anyone is able and chooses not to provide for relatives , and especially members of their own household , you know that's an issue Because , again , if they're able to , you don't just buy it with money , buy it with good health , by passing an exam , typically . You know it's a good thing to do that and then to circle around back to your other question .

David Drake 25:31

You know , rather than just saying to the widow or to the elderly , you know , in an exasperated kind of a frustrated fashion , together with them gee , it's too late , I think in this situation where a man dies on the younger side and a wife has to work , continue to support her family , to be able to counsel her in the way that Chris said earlier and just get in front of a life insurance professional to have a calculation done about how much you need and to make sure also that associated legal documents are in place for trust for those minor children and that good arrangements are made for that and the disposition of whatever assets may be there and to take care of the money on behalf of children , that those kinds of choices are made as well for widows and that she would be assisted in that way .

David Drake 26:20

For the elderly , an awful lot of the training I call it training it's actually more mandatory than that that Chris and I have had to undergo in the last decade has been around sales of products to seniors , because they do so very often get taken advantage of , and so that's a really important category for deacons to be alert to . People who prey on the elderly are trying to use really good motivations to harm them in many ways .

David Drake 26:50

I would say probably an example of that would be people who think that they want to make sure that they have a quote unquote last expense policy or burial policy that's going to alleviate the expense from their family of having to take care of a funeral , the price of which has gone up just so much in the last number of years , you know instead being sold something that only pays often for an accident , an accidental death , something like that .

David Drake 27:19

So to be in a position to review a potential purchase , even if it's a deacon offering to , could I , you know , I'm happy to read through that for you to see if I see anything that you don't see in that regard . The other types of policies that actually do pay off for the elderly if they buy them , sometimes don't ask very many medical questions but have very limited coverage if someone dies right away . Also , they can be extremely expensive . So you know it may be someone asked me to quote this recently and for $25,000 or $40,000 policy , the premium might be $4,000 or $5,000 a year and you just look at that and go okay , how is your health really ? Because you could pay more in premiums than the death benefit pretty quickly on that . So let's put our heads together about that and see is it really worth it ? So those would be a few categories . I think that would be helpful to be paying attention to be a few categories .

Kris Lehner 28:15

I think that would be helpful to be able to choose . I think there are going to be certain deacons who are predisposed , who are being comfortable with this conversation , and others who are not , and that's just how we're all built . Some of us feel very comfortable in this space and others don't . I think , again , going back to perspective , david and I would almost call it fact-finding you know you're looking for what is a need or what could become a potential need in the church , or maybe how do we help avoid it or how do we address it prior to becoming an emergency .

Kris Lehner 28:41

In my experience , some of these things are formal and some of these things are not . It's always nice to find an opportunity to be in someone's natural surrounding with them . You know , if you're helping them rake leaves on a Saturday , you're actually going to find out more about what's going on in their lives than if you meet them necessarily for coffee in the church hall after the sermon . So there , I would encourage deacons as much as possible to spend as much time with their folks as possible in what I would call natural settings , maybe their home again helping with a project . And that's a good way , because things come up in conversation that you would not necessarily expect , which are going to lead us to establishing a potential need for something , acknowledging again what you said is the church is not a bank and the church is not an insurance company but those , I think , are really good settings to figure out something that's happening before it happens .

Peter Haines 29:45

Good advice . I sure appreciate it . Anything else to consider ? That's also a very good question . But you talked about some disability insurances and life insurances . On the personal side , Is there any type of church insurance that would cover the people of the church ? There's not , is there Nothing ? It all boils down to individual policies for individual liability .

Kris Lehner 30:08

For most folks . If a person works for a larger employer , it's not uncommon that their employer will offer coverage or already covers people for certain things like disability , short-term disability , perhaps even long-term care . That's common . It's also common that if you work for and again this depends on the company , generally the size of the company you'll actually be able to have the option of buying up a little bit , and those are generally pretty good options , particularly since you don't have to prove good health to get those People that are self-employed three of us , you know we're in a different circumstance .

Kris Lehner 30:42

We have to make sure that we go out and get this stuff for ourselves . We need to be intentional about it . So our self-employed people , however , our pastors , are almost exactly in the same situation . Each church in the OPC almost and I know this not legally and not technically , but at least from a benefits perspective it's going to look very much like a small business . So those are factors and matters that really should be addressed in full , to the extent that it's possible . To the extent that it's possible and David and I fully appreciate that it's not always possible in every church to approach that perfectly and the way we'd all like to see it done but to the extent that it can be it should be . I know the OPC Committee on Ministerial Care has provided some avenues for the ministers to buy particular forms of insurance which should hopefully make some of these decisions easier for them or at least bring costs down and move , not require certain evidence of insurability .

Peter Haines 31:47

And I also know that they have really good interaction with developing a plan and they offer to many of our ministers , when they reach a certain age , consultation and financial advising , which is really great . Not many denominations can say they do that and that's a thing where our Committee on Ministerial Care cares for our ministers , which is really good .

Kris Lehner 32:08

In its larger context . Insurance is one of those things , peter , that , at least insofar as it concerns the individual , or if it's an individual business owner or even our pastor , the type and the amount of insurance that they have really is part of their financial plan . So it's not this thing there by itself , it's part of the whole , and it should be considered as part of the whole if a person has the ability to do that .

Peter Haines 32:33

All right . Well , in conclusion , I think we can say there are many options to consider . We can't say if there's a right or an absolute , proper way to protect ourselves and the church from liability , but there are prudent choices that we can make that may ease our burden

Gratitude and Feedback for Deacons' Insurance

Peter Haines 32:47

. By God's grace , to his glory , I want to give thanks to Chris and David for being here today .

Kris Lehner 32:53

Great to meet you . Thank you very much .

Peter Haines 32:58

We appreciate you sharing your experience in the area of your insurance Deacons . We hope that this episode was helpful to you as you serve your congregation . We'd love to hear feedback on this episode . On other episodes , feel free to text us using the what Did you Think Text Us link just above the program notes on your podcast player .

David Nakhla 33:26

text us link just above the program notes on your podcast player .