Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Protects “Brick and Mortar With Hope and Healing”
The Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company gave the Baptist Churches of New England a $25,000 unrestricted gift on June 28. Since 2016, their annual gifts to the BCNE have totaled nearly a quarter of a million dollars, according to Ken Dorothy, a Boston-area licensed insurance broker since 1979 and a member of Genesis, a BCNE-member community church in Woburn, Mass.
The Indiana-based corporation provides risk-management protection to churches and ministries and reimburses them for a range of otherwise devastating financial losses—everything from rebuilding after a fire and repair after a car accident to cash after a workers’ compensation claim and coverage for a sexual misconduct lawsuit, actual or imagined.
Four Mennonite ministers started the company in 1917 to live out Galatians 6:2 that urges followers of Jesus Christ to “bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Brotherhood Mutual’s “ministry partnership program” contributes annually to the BCNE and other denominations that have more than a hundred congregations in New England and are willing to promote their products. “We come alongside a ministry [and develop] a partnership—like a marriage with the ministry,” said Dorothy. “Brotherhood Mutual is the only insurance company in the country that runs on Christian principles,” he added.
The BCNE promotes the company’s insurance products to its churches and affiliates with an annual letter and a notice on its website. Earlier this year, Terry Dorsett, the BCNE Executive Director, wrote an open letter to remind church and ministry leaders that “insurance is one of those things that you might not think you need, until you actually need it! In those moments, it is important to make sure you are adequately covered.” He expressed appreciation for Dorothy’s contributions and ministry-focused insurance options and said that the funds are used where most needed for the general budget.
A resident of Wilmington, Mass., Dorothy helps Protestant and Orthodox churches prepare for unexpected crises, large and small; Roman Catholics have their own insurance companies. After graduating with a business degree from Suffolk University, he published Christian marketing directories, a Christian newspaper, and a magazine for Christian single adults. He also directed the Rumney Bible Conference in New Hampshire and worked for an insurance agency in downtown Boston.
He has worked since September 2014 for a church-focused agency—the American Church Group New England —which insures some 2,500 churches, colleges, universities, schools, camps, and missions. Dorothy serves 1,000 of those clients. Brotherhood Mutual insures more than 65,000 churches and ministries nationwide. They mix “brick and mortar with hope and healing.”
Those who contact Dorothy (kdorothy@americanchurchgroup.com) for the first time soon discover a world of insurance options such as property and liability, which protects against disasters and lawsuits so a church “can get back to where they were before the damage.” Brotherhood Mutual also provides commercial automobile coverage for church vehicles.
Workers’ compensation provides cash benefits and medical care for people who are injured or become ill as a direct result of their job. Brotherhood Mutual offers this protection to pastors and church members while they are “on the job.” The policy pays seventy percent of salary, medical bills, and, if necessary, retraining when a pastor or any church member is disabled or otherwise incapacitated.
Dorothy told of a Connecticut pastor who was shot while hanging a promotional banner outside. He survived but was unable to work for almost a year. He also told of a Connecticut church that burned down early on a Sunday morning in April. They are rebuilding thanks to Brotherhood Mutual’s payment of four million dollars. [Neither church is affiliated with the BCNE.]
When short-term mission teams travel to other countries, personal medical insurance likely will not cover an illness or an accident, so Brotherhood Mutual offers “mission protection” that will pay for emergency care and, if necessary, air evacuation.
The counseling and spiritual advice a church or Christian school provides can be protected from lawsuits that arise from alleged or actual sexual abuse. Dorothy told of a youth pastor in New England who met privately with a teen girl for spiritual counsel and was confronted by her claims about being raped. Although Dorothy said he was innocent of the charge, the youth pastor had to leave the ministry.
The company also provides payroll services and human resources solutions for their clients including tax preparation and filing.
As a specialist in ministry-focused insurance, Brotherhood Mutual takes “a comprehensive approach to custom-build policies which protect your people, property, and reputation,” according to their online statement.
Every day the insurance agents also pray for their clients, which is uncommon in that profession.
A Massachusetts native and a New England Baptist since 1970, Dan Nicholas is the BCNE managing editor.