Preparing MTM Member Dividends

January and February are an important time for MTM staff. It’s when we put together all the documentation that leads up to the printing of member dividend checks in March. Let me give you a rundown of what happens. On New Year’s weekend, Chris Doebler our 28-year veteran CFO puts together all of the claims detail and payroll information for 2023. This immense amount of detail is sent to an outside actuary to do loss valuations required by the Michigan Insurance Department. This review takes close to three weeks by the outside actuarial firm. 

 On January 29th Chris Doebler, Megan Brown, our VP of Sales/Marketing, and myself head to Nashville to meet with our actuarial advisors to discuss the results. We review the 110-page document to evaluate the proper reserves that are necessary to make sure that all the money necessary to pay those claims is put away. It is a challenging balancing act with the legislative and judicial changes, inflationary impact, and the loss trends of our members. 

 Once we have these numbers finalized, we rush to prepare for a Board Finance Committee meeting, which consists of not only Board members but members as well on February 8th. Management and the Committee review the company finances and this year determined that the company made a profit of $3.6 Million. With their review and questions, a recommendation is made to the full Board which would meet a week later. That same afternoon February 8th the Board Marketing and Underwriting Committee meet to take the profit that is recommended by the Board Finance Committee and determine the most equitable allocation to the MTM members. 

 On February 15, the full Board which is made up of 11 manufacturing presidents, CFOs and other managers review the recommendations from both the Board Finance Committee and the Board Marketing and Underwriting Committee to see if any necessary changes are needed. This year no changes were made from the Committee recommendations and the Board instructed the MTM management team to put together all the necessary paperwork for the state, do the necessary accounting records and tax consequences to implement the dividend for payment on March 21st .

 This year 100% of members that had a policy in force in 2023 and are active members will receive a dividend check. If a policy was not active in 2023 or the company is new to MTM in 2024, there is no dividend for this year. Due to the success of passing out dividend checks at the March MTM Annual Members meeting we will again be handing out the dividend checks on March 21st. We hope that if you have not registered you will. We have $3.25 million to hand out.

 Congratulations to our members on having a good loss year, our Board Committees for doing the necessary analysis and the full Board for its final approval. As I said for 10 years in a row, nothing is more fun than delivering checks to our members. For those members who are unable to attend the annual meeting, the day after the meeting we will start delivery to the individual members. And like in the past I will try to take a picture of those visits for use in the next newsletter.

The fun part of handing out the checks is about to begin. See you all soon. — John