Important for Churches and Schools

WELS VEBA was originally implemented to help provide consistent benefits to WELS called workers and to help congregations and schools navigate benefits for their workers. The advantages, for both the congregation and school leaders and called workers, have been proven across the synod.

Rev. Paul Prange, who has served in many ministry roles, from pastor, to a prep school president, and now as the administrator of Ministerial Education, says, “Our pastors graduating from WLS [Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, Mequon, Wis.] and our teachers graduating from MLC [Martin Luther College, New Ulm, Minn.] know that their health insurance needs will be taken care of by VEBA regardless of preexisting conditions.  What a blessing!”

Mr. Jim Rademan, director of the Commission on Lutheran Schools and former teacher and principal, says, “It is a true blessing to have a commission seeking to provide a quality health care insurance program for congregations and our workers throughout WELS.  There is great comfort in knowing that as divine calls are considered, questions regarding, coverages, providers, and preexisting conditions don’t have to be a consideration as a worker moves from one calling body to another.”

Mr. Stan Bothe, congregation president at Peace, Green Lake, Wis., recently helped the congregation in calling a new teacher for the school. Peace provides WELS VEBA benefits to its called workers. Bothe says, “The school is an important ministry of our congregation and we take very seriously the call process to ensure it’s a right fit for our school and for the teacher we call. There’s a lot of factors to consider. With WELS VEBA rates consistent across all ages and because the vetting of plans has already been done, we can focus on the ministry and the teacher when making these decisions, and not get hung up on details like insurance. It helps us keep the ministry first and business of it second.”

Bothe says the WELS VEBA plan is a true benefit to the called workers, too. He explains, “Probably like many of the WELS schools, we’re not big and we don’t have unlimited funding, so to know we can offer our teachers and our pastor a good health plan that will meet their needs and that they can take with them if they should be called into a new ministry – it’s important to take care of the people who work in the ministry.”