The last 10 weeks has been most interesting. Years ago, I was in an unusual situation of being able to have dinner with Yogi Berra and two of his sons in New Jersey. It was a couple of evenings of fascinating discussion. After the first dinner, I read up more about Yogi and many of his famous common-sense quotes. One of my favorites was, “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” It seems to apply so precisely to our last 10 weeks. Even with all the turmoil in life, the focus of MTM as always remains on what can we do to help our members. Let me cover two big items during the last 10 weeks.

When the pandemic started, we were in the third week of delivering dividend checks to our MTM member/owners. There were 908 checks to deliver, totaling $4,452,454. As I have written over the years, the best part of my job is the surprise drop-ins on MTM members WITH MONEY. That always entails great smiles and pictures that we have used in newsletters and annual company videos. A couple of things you may not know is that management and the Board of Directors has worked hard over the last four years in increasing the percentage of members that get the dividend, by extending the dividend eligibility. In 2017, 86% of MTM members received checks. In 2018, the percentage went up slightly to 89%. And then in 2019, it notched up another three percentage points to 92%. The Board for the 2020 checks extended the criteria so that 99.1% of MTM members received a check. It is a nice accomplishment by the MTM management, the Board committees and full MTM Board. The other couple of numbers that you may find interesting is that in 2019, MTM returned 26% of the annual premium in member dividends. In 2020, the percentage was 24.4%. While many commercial competitors have started a dividend program to compete with MTM, any commercial dividend program is minuscule compared to the MTM program. Commercial carriers may want to pay a dividend to members, but they first have to pay a dividend to their stockholders. We are very lucky at MTM to know that our member dividend and stockholder dividend go to the same people – MTM members. All company dividends go directly to our MTM member/owners and March was a perfect time to get additional money to our member/owners.

The MTM Loss Control team normally visits shops to give them safety reviews. Of course, during the pandemic, many shops were closed to outside contact. Many were operating at partial capacity, and a few were closed altogether. We were surprised how many shops remained open. There is much more essential goods support than you might think. During that limited access time, our loss control team stayed in regular contact with our members to determine what they could do to support them during this unusual time. I thought I would share with you three of the comments that I received during the time period.

Chris, MTM Loss Control Representative: “Thank you for checking in and reminding us of the resources that are available to us. It is always helpful as we try to navigate through this. Stay safe.”

Travis, MTM Loss Control Representative: “Good morning, Travis, so far so good! We haven’t had any of our employees test positive and we are closely monitoring everyone’s health and situations. Thank you for all the guidance and support provided by MTM! We greatly appreciate all you do! We hope everyone there is well, and continue to be that way. Stay healthy and safe.”

Ruth, our Loss Control Vice President. “Hi Ruth, I just wanted to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to you and the MTM LC team for putting together the COVID-19 resources! I can’t imagine the amount of time that went into that, but for me it was a lifesaver! It was overwhelming starting back to work, playing catch up, and worrying about how and when I could get all of the information together so that the company had a plan that was COVID compliant. I read your May bulletin and found the angels at MTM had done all the really hard work for me. Again, thank you so so much. I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy!”

There is lots to do. And we know that yesterday’s accomplishments, while helpful, will not help our members for tomorrow and the next day and the next month. Please call upon us to help anyway we can. MTM exists solely for the benefit of our member/owners. Stay safe and healthy.