“I need health insurance.” Says the 22 year old youth pastor who can’t spell “insurance.”
“I left the church I love and was called to because the other church had better benefits.” Says the 30 year old campus pastor who still doesn’t maximize his church matching 403b contribution and hasn’t been to the doctor in 10 years.
“Benefits” is one of those words that has lost nearly all meaning and is now mostly used as a weapon or excuse. So about that health insurance benefit, I’m gonna lay out a few things to think about.
You don’t need to look much further than the FACT that if you’re on insurance, the hospital charges you substantially more than if you’re a cash patient.
Yep, you didn’t know that? Then YOU are part of the problem.
They’ll bill your insurance company $10,000 for something that can cost you $900 if you just used your credit card. Yes, LITERALLY. Been there done that a thousand times!
It’s a scam.
So at some point you have to ask, “Why don’t we just all use cash then?”
Big reason probably has to do with the fact the person handling your church insurance is just as ignorant as you are. Or if you’re part of a big church with an HR team, the salesman (yes, salesman) for your insurance company is paid well and makes good commission because, again, your HR people know just about as much as you do so they nod their heads, their eyes glaze over reading the prospectus, and they just say “Sure, let’s go with option B… for $20k a month.”
First, that assumes you’re good at hiring the best people. And that’s just silly but I don’t have time to go into that. I have a dozen other posts about helping you choose better people. And insurance is NEVER the reason you do or don’t have the best people.
Second, you can offer insurance to a $50k pastor. Or you can pay him $75k and tell him to find his own insurance.
If you’re that pastor, which do you want to be? For me, I’ll take the second option every time! I can find insurance for my entire neighborhood for less than $25,000 a year.
If you think the “best” people are driven by insurance, your defintion of “best” is … well, completely off. But ok buddy.
One, they have a baby.
Two, millions have babies without insurance.
Three, your staff can still be covered and have it paid for in other ways (I’ll have a post on that this week).
My big issue is how you jumped from the anomaly of a few staff having a few babies to “OMG, we need to pay $10,000/mo for insurance for everyone forever. Ahhh!!!”
I’ve worked as an Executive Pastor at 2 churches. I was on the Operations team at Elevation that also had unique insights into benefits and programs for massive staffs like that. I also am self-employed now and have coverage. I’m also not a liberal who sucks off the government and complains at the same time. I also pay less than every other friend I have. I also consult with churches across the country on this subject (among others related to benefits).
So I’m gonna throw out a few posts this week on ways to think about it.
You CAN just do what you’re doing.
You CAN just Google stuff and pay it and keep complaining about it.
But at least just ask a few better questions. Perhaps realize that there are other options. And you may just need to get creative instead of lighting all that money on fire every year for absolutely no reason at all.
I’m not an insurance salesman. I am making zero money from these posts. And I’m not telling you what to do.
I’m just helping you think about this for probably the first time.
See you tomorrow.
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