# LCMS Convention Proceedings_St. Louis Missouri_1950_S1269
# Machine transcription, uncorrected — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

790 FINANCIAL MATTERS

A like privilege of election shall be extended to the widow
of the member who dies prior to the date of entering upon
an age or disability annuity.

We also believe it to be to the best interests of Synod itself
and also to those pastors and teachers who receive their salary
from Synod or from a District in Synod that the following amend.
ment be adopted:

Amendment and Addition to Section Referring to “Workers”
10.41 £
Participation in Synod’s Pension Fund shall be required
of every pastor, professor, missionary, teacher, deaconess, or
other full-time church worker who after July 1, 1950, accepts
a position in, and receives his salary from, The Lutheran
Church — Missouri Synod or from a District in Synod.

- The possibility of setting up a group-~insurance program in
behalf of members of the Pension Fund was given much study.
Your Board dealt with a reputable agent of one of the largest
mutual insurance companies in the country to learn the cost of such
insurance to the worker in Synod and to Synod itself. It was the
unanimous opinion of the Board, which discussed this problem in
three separate plenary sessions, that we should not recommend
a group-insurance program to Synod for the following reasons:

1. Young men can get insurance from commercial companies
at very much the same rate as group insurance would cost
them;

2. Such a group-insurance program would require additional
costly accounting; and

3. The collection of the premiums presents a great problem.

Synod at present is paying a Death Benefit of $250 to the

widow or family of every deceased Pension Fund member whose
account is in good standing at the time of his death. Group insur-
ance would not provide an increase in the Death Benefit in behalf
of those members who have already retired. Our purpose in pay-
ing a Death Benefit from Synod’s Budget is to aid the worker’s or
the pensioner’s widow and to encourage participation in the Fund
and promptness in paying the contribution. Because the value of
the dollar has decreased since the Death Benefit was fixed at $250
and also as a further inducement to our active workers to join the
Pension Fund or to continue the regular and prompt payments of
Pension dues, we recommend that
The Death Benefit be increased from $250 to $500, subject
to the same type of deductions obtaining at the present time
where the account of the deceased member is not paid in full.
The cost of the Death Benefit to Synod would thus be increased

from $14,000 to $28,000 a year. This increased special benefit
should become effective as of February 1, 1951.