c. 2007 Religion News Service

ORLANDO, Fla. _ Wesley United Methodist Church is a congregation of a few hundred members in Marco Island, Fla. It is an active congregation with ministries to the homeless, students and the elderly, and every year it sends missionaries to Guatemala.

The congregation enjoys a prime location less than two miles from Florida’s Gulf Coast and pays for it _ $47,000 this year alone on property insurance, which is about half what it would pay on the open market.

With help from a statewide insurance plan of the United Methodist Church, the congregation is able to invest more in local ministries and outreach, said Ernie Stevens, chairman of the congregation’s finance committee.

“Everybody is subject to something, tornadoes or floods or hurricanes or mudslides or all these things that we hear happening to people. So if we can share each other’s burdens,” he said, “it would be a very beneficial thing for all of us.”

Across Florida, hurricanes have pushed property insurance rates sky-high, forcing some homeowners from their homes and prompting new legislation that aims to reduce rates. Churches have not been immune to the burden, but United Methodist congregations are finding relief in a plan that spreads risk among churches statewide, making insurance available to coastal congregations like Wesley and alleviating costs for all.

Now United Methodist leaders are joining with Catholics, Lutherans, Presbyterians, Seventh-day Adventists and others to explore whether such a plan could work nationwide.

The idea is actually fairly simple _ the likelihood of a catastrophic event devastating such a large area is not as great, so when hurricane-prone churches share risk with churches in earthquake-prone and tornado-prone regions, premiums go down.

“When we first met last year, I was astonished. I thought we would all be talking about wind storm damage,” said Mickey Wilson, treasurer of the Methodists’ statewide conference. “It’s just as difficult for someone within a certain distance of the Missouri River to get insurance. … It’s not just about wind storms. It’s about all sorts of other catastrophes.”

The conversation began after the Catholic Church confronted its sex scandals, said Peter Persuitti, managing director of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., an Itasca, Ill.-based insurance brokerage and consulting firm specializing in religious organizations. Churches are unique and misunderstood by some insurers, he said. They are nonprofits serving communities on small budgets but are very accountable to their communities.

“If I (as an insurer) think I’m underwriting a bad risk I will charge more,” he said.

Eventually denominations began creating their own insurance companies. Seven years ago, denominational leaders met to discuss common issues. After Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and so many others swept across the Southeast in 2005, these leaders began exploring the idea of spreading risk, Persuitti said.

He explains it this way: If you could choose between insuring churches in Florida and insuring churches in Florida, California and the Midwest, you would choose the latter. That’s spreading risk.

Insurance rates have surged in recent years all across Florida. Now Florida Gov. Charlie Crist is pushing the idea of a national catastrophe fund. Policyholders nationwide would pay into a pool that would help cover costs no matter where a disaster occurred _ a hurricane in Louisiana, an earthquake in California or a tornado in Oklahoma, for example. A similar fund already exists for floods.

The idea has gained some traction as disasters in recent years have devastated areas well beyond Florida. Hurricane season started June 1, and forecasters are predicting an above-average season, part of a decades-long upswing in activity.

In Florida, the United Methodist Church insures all its congregations through a plan that spreads risk statewide. Rather than let congregations seek insurance on their own, the denomination’s Florida Annual Conference takes all its congregations to market for a $20 million annual fee. The fee is up from $4 million three years ago, and the rest of the conference budget is only $12 million. But Wilson, the treasurer of the statewide conference, said some churches couldn’t get insurance on their own.

“It’s affected our ability to minister. It’s affected our ability to do outreach,” he said of the climbing costs. “Having the entire nation come into this would be just huge.”

KRE/RB END GREEN800 words

File photos of churches damaged by Hurricane Charley in 2004 are available via https://religionnews.com. Search by “Charley.” Multiple photos also available of damaged churches in Hurricane Katrina.