Fraternity-Testvériség, 1975 (53. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1975-04-01 / 4-6. szám
4. By-Laws During 1974 no revisions or changes were made in the By-Laws of the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America. This was the second occasion when a few State Insurance Departments requested copies of our By-Laws although we stated in our 1972 Annual Report that the By-Laws containing the changes made by the 1972 Convention were promptly mailed in 1972 to the departments. The Federation must comply in every respect with the insurance laws in the states it operates. The emphasis is on the WORD “comply”. Non-compliance automatically means violation. Violation might mean penalty or even the revocation of license to operate. 5. Executive Committee During the year 39 Executive Committee meetings were held. Since the illness of Mr. Paul St. Miklossy, Recording Secretary in February 1973, I substituted for him and mailed copies of all the minutes to the Board of Directors complying with the resolution passed at the 1973 Spring Board meeting. 6. Disciplinary Matters During the year there was no need for any disciplinary action. 7. Fraternity Our Official Paper was edited by Dr. Zoltán Beky, President and published at the Bethlen Press, Inc., Ligonier, Pa. During the year I cooperated with the President by writing promotional and fraternal articles in English and Hungarian. In the October-November-December issue of the Fraternity, I started to publish a calendar of branch meetings stating the number, date, time, place and address of the meetings held. In the January-February-March issue the list is more complete. In the following issue I hope to publish a complete listing. II. OUR TAX EXEMPT STATUS Since 1969 I made many reports and sent many circulars concerning the H.R. 13270 Income Tax Law. My department is concerned to comply with H.R. 13270 as a fraternal benefit society. Our By-Laws make it mandatory for our branches to meet monthly and have fraternal, charitable, cultural and social activities. I mailed three circulars in 1973 and three again in 1974 to the branches on this important subject. On the basis of the correspondence I received from the branches I made my report to the Spring Board of Directors meeting. III. OUR NEW LIFE INSURANCE PLANS The New York State Assembly passed a law that from January 1, 1975 all the insurance companies licensed to sell life insurance in the state of New York must base all their life insurance plans on the 1958 Commissioners Mortality Table. The law was made mandatory not only for the operation in the state of New York but for all the states the insurance company operates. Our new life insurance plans were worked out in 1973. The computer was programmed to give the new rates based not only on the newer mortality table but also do the “loading” on the one digit annual inflation which in 1974 became two digits. In most cases our rates are more competitive than before. By the end of January we received the approval of all the state insurance departments and in February we received the approval of the insurance department in the Province of Ontario, Canada. Certain states requested an endorsement statement or certain sentences to be deleted wih a black ink rubber stamp. Pennsylvania requested a special endorsement form for our certificates stating that “dividend” be replaced with the words “surplus refund” whenever it appears. The insurance department of Ontario Province, Canada in February, 1975 approved all our new application certificate and rider forms with the request that on the top of the front page the address of our Canadian Office be printed and on the bottom of the page the abbreviation: “Can.” be printed. This will add another unexpected expense to our printing. IV. FIELD FORCE TRAINING COURSE The Field Force training course was held from August 26 through 30 in Ligonier, Pa. The training course was taken by the following members of our Field Force: Joseph Bakty, Frank Dance,, Alexander Hody, László Kernes, Dr. Tibor Köss, Rev. Dr. Arthur A. Ludwig, William Puskas, Mrs. Margaret Saltzer, Dr. Antal Viczian and Dr. Daniel Vizsolyi. During the morning session I presented the summary of a commercial company’s manual preparing their agents to pass the New Jersey state life insurance examination. In the afternoon session I presented the summary of the chapters of the F.I.C. course on the “Life Insurance Fundamentals”, Volume I. It was a very strenuous training course. The members of our Field Force worked very hard. At the end of every morning session the members were requested to answer the series of questions given in the instructor’s manual. At the end of every afternoon session the members were requested to answer the questions printed in the text book at the end of each chapter. The members were greatly helped by the summary copy prepared by me. If they would have to read the whole text of the F.I.C. basic course from the beginning to the end a week’s time would not be sufficient for the reading, discussion, question and answer period. It was our discovery that the aim of the commercial material was to prepare the agents for the state license examination. The F.I.C. course was a repetition of the material in a more detailed manner. It also was very helpful by giving a historical background of fraternal insurance and presenting actual cases how a fraternal organization should operate on all its structural levels. It was my feeling that we all learned much during the training course week. We had the opportunity to exchange our thoughts. We left with the thought that we now know better what we are supposed to do and will do it more intelligently and with a dedicated fraternal spirit. It cost the Hungarian Reformed Federation of America a considerable amount of money to pay for the books, travel and per diem expenses and it was my impression that it was a good investment for the future benefit of the Federation. V. PROMOTION AND PROPAGANDA Recruiting new District and Section Managers is becoming increasingly difficult. It is a challenge to find new dedicated fraternal persons to do full time or part time promotional work for the Federation. We were successful in Woodbridge and Canada. There is a steady decrease in the 1st and 2nd year lapses. Many District and Section Managers are pressed to meet their annual quota"requirements during the last months of the year. The result is an unusual high amount of 1st year lapses during the January-March period of the following year. Since 1970 our best production year was 1974. We ended the year with an impressive amount of increase. 14
