By the time you receive this newsletter, MTM staff will be in the final phase of delivering the 2018 member dividends. This year’s dividend is $4 million made up of two Board declarations. The $3.5 million amount matches the dividend amounts from March, 2017 and March, 2016. Plus this year the Board declared an additional $500,000 from savings of the tax bill signed into law in December. The total dividend amounts to an average dividend of 22% of member’s premium. Staff has 802 dividend checks. Delivery methods vary from mailing, to agency delivery, MTM Loss Control Reps, Megan Brown – VP of Marketing and Sales and me. Last year Megan and I drove over 12,000 miles in 3 weeks delivering checks to members. Each stop was a surprise, great conversation, plant tour and pictures.

As a reminder, while 802 members received a dividend, 94 members were too new to qualify. The good news is that they will qualify for the next dividend cycle in 11 short months. Also like past years the dividend check you see is actually a total of two dividends. All 802 members qualified for the “loyalty” dividend (being an MTM member with at least one renewal). There were 568 members (or 81%) that qualified for the great loss ratio dividend. The dividend goal of the Board of Directors is to reward all MTM members and second reward members who excelled in their loss control efforts. With all loss accounts fully funded our goal as a small member owned company is to return profits to MTM members. Unlike commercial companies who sometimes have a dividend which often amounts to a couple percentage points of their premium, this year’s MTM dividend is 89% of the profit. This percentage by itself, underlines the focus of MTM on its members. Now enjoy the pictures …