Over the Wire: Spring 2017

Financial Strength of the Health and Welfare Fund

This year marks the 45th anniversary of your Health and Welfare Fund.

Starting with approximately 815 Plan Members in 1971 and rising to now provide Benefits to over 6,419 Plan Members and their families.

Throughout this period the Fund received 339 million dollars in Contributions and earned 42 million dollars of investment income on the Fund’s reserves. This has resulted in 381 million dollars of resources to provide benefits for our Plan Members. Of the 381 million dollars, 278 million was used to secure medical, dental, vision, disability, life and employee assistance benefits to Plan Members and their families. When unionized electrical workers from across North America were needed to meet Alberta’s labour needs, the Fund reciprocated 16 million dollars in Contributions to these Employees’ home Locals to ensure their Benefit Coverage remained continuous. The claims processing and administrative cost of providing these Benefits was less than 7% of the monies received by the Fund.

The Board of Trustees is proud to report that 31 million dollars remains available to provide Benefits through Plan Members’ Hour Banks and Years-of-Service Banks to help Plan Members during periods of unemployment and into their retirement. This leaves almost 30 million dollars to assist the Fund to meet its commitments in periods of higher than anticipated Benefit utilization and for future Benefit improvements.

The Fund is well positioned to continue to provide Health and Welfare Benefits well into the future.

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