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Plan Administration

General Responsibilities

Concordia Plan Services has tools and information to assist church treasurers and business administrators in the proper administration of the Concordia Plans.  These include informational videos, step by step forms, publications, and more.

Keeping Us Informed

In order to keep accurate records and serve you better, please inform Concordia Plan Services if you:
  • Change a worker status such as a new hire, termination, life changes (i.e. marriage, new dependents, divorces) or retirement; or if duties, hours, or salary change for a worker.
  • Have a recent change in Concordia Plan Services officers or church councils.

Major Duties

Online invoice payment, payment responsibility and special billing information.

Enrollment & Eligibility

Understanding how to enroll an employer or employee in the Concordia Plans, as well as handling terminations, status changes, and more.

Package Options

The Concordia Plans are employer-sponsored benefit programs. An employer makes the decision whether to participate in the Plans for its workers. Concordia Plan Services offers packages for employers. In addition, the employer can provide a cafeteria plan to their workers, allowing the deductions for the worker portion of the cost to be paid with pre-tax dollars. 
 
If an employer participates in the Concordia Retirement Plan (CRP) and the Concordia Disability & Survivor Plan (CDSP), all full-time workers, regardless of age, sex, occupation, or faith, must be enrolled in these two plans.
 
If an employer participates in the Concordia Health Plan (CHP), all full-time workers, regardless of age, sex, occupation, or faith, must be offered the opportunity to enroll themselves and any eligible dependents.
 
Providing these benefits for employees will help to ensure their future as well as make their financial burden easier. Concordia Plan Services is proud to offer these comprehensive plans that care for those in the LCMS ministry.
 
To join the Church’s Plan, contact a Benefit Consultant.

Package Options
for Employers

The Church’s Plan is our complete benefits package, which includes the Concordia Retirement Plan, the Concordia Retirement Savings Plan, the Concordia Health Plan, and the Concordia Disability and Survivor Plan, providing total benefits to your workers, and helping to preserve the promise of the LCMS community to care for each other.

Package 3

Package 3 is the basic package for employers, and includes:
  • CDSP – Includes benefits for long and short term disability (including maternity), as well as death benefits.
  • CRP – Choose from the Traditional (pension) option or the Account Option (Retirement Cash Account).

CHP Elections

Each summer, employers participating in the Concordia Health Plan (CHP) can elect a different plan coverage option for the coming year.

Benefit Consultants and Employer Relations Specialists are available to help employers understand the CHP options, work with your funding strategies, and answer any questions you have to ease the selection process.
 
All employers can elect to offer one CHP option (known as Employer Choice); based on its number of workers, employers may be eligible to select multiple CHP options (known as Worker Choice).

Exemption Status

Legislative provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) caused us to consider the different types of organizations we serve. Exempt organizations (churches, conventions or associations of churches, and integrated auxiliaries) are exempt from having to provide certain women’s preventive care services not aligned with our Lutheran beliefs, and therefore can elect one of the four non-grandfathered plan options introduced in the 2015 plan year. Non-Exempt organizations (universities, some schools, and RSOs) are not exempt from this mandate, and will be protected by continuing to elect a grandfathered plan option.

Considerations

Our 13 Concordia Health Plan Options for employers range in both offerings as well as cost. Benefit Consultants and Employer Relations Specialists are available to help review the options that will make the most sense for any particular ministry. Whether you are selecting a single plan option or multiple options and participating in worker choice, let our experts help find the right fit.

Funding Strategies

Employers can choose to fund a portion or all of their employee benefits, covering just workers, or also covering dependents. Benefit Consultants and Employer Relations Specialists are available to work through these complex topics with ministries.

Webinars & Tutorials

In order to better serve our customers, Concordia Plan Services will host a series of webinars throughout 2016 designed to help employers and workers of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod better understand a variety of topics, such as Employer Elections and maximizing ministry health care dollars. If you have a suggestion for a webinar, please let us know.

For recent webinars check the resources box on the right. 

Upcoming Webinars

No webinars are currently scheduled. Please check the resources box at right for recent recordings.

Vitality Member Education Webinars

Learn how to use Vitality in the way that works best for you! Our member education webinars will teach you everything from how to set goals to how to redeem your Vitality bucks! Have fun, earn points, but most importantly, Be Well so you can Serve Well! 




 

Tutorials and
Recordings

Treasurer Orientation provides a high-level overview of the administrative duties of treasurers and business managers.

Tutorials and Webinars

This comprehensive list of tutorials explains everything from health plan options and employer elections to how to submit your enrollment and payroll and contribution files for PSAs.

CRSP Administration

Concordia Plan Services has partnered with EBSO (formerly SOMI) to collect and consolidate contributions for the CRSP, which will be then forwarded to Fidelity. All employers must complete and return an ACH Funding Authorization Form (in the resources box at right). Contributions must be remitted to the Plan no later than 20 business days following the month in which they were otherwise due to the Member. Failure to remit contributions in a timely manner could result in the Employer being responsible to fund lost earnings to members' accounts. If contributions have been withheld but not remitted to the Plan, please contact our office.

Employers then have three options for remitting CRSP contributions using EBSO:

Use the EBSO Online Service Center, the recommended option for all employers.
 
  • Create an online account with EBSO according to the instructions. 
  • Begin remitting contributions to the Online Service Center each pay period with a remittance file formatted in exact accordance with the online instructions.

    EBSO Guide
Use the EBSO Automatic Contribution Remittance Form - another preferred method that is a good fit for employers whose workers do not vary their salary deferral amounts, or rarely change them.
 
  • Complete and submit an Automatic Contribution Remittance Form to have workers' salary deferrals and applicable employer contributions automatically withdrawn each pay period from your organization's checking account.
  • You must communicate any changes to your workers’ contributions to EBSO as they occur. The Automatic Contribution Election Remittance form will remain in place until EBSO is notified otherwise. The receipt of any new form will void and replace any forms currently on file with EBSO, so be sure to include all of your participating workers on any new form.

    Automatic Remittance Form
Sign up for payroll and remittance services with Paychex

If the above remittance options do not appear to be a good fit for your organization, you may use the manual, pay period by pay period remittance method as follows:

 
  • The Contribution Remittance Form will need to be completed and submitted to EBSO each pay period for all of your workers’ salary deferrals. Please e-mail a CRSP Representative at CRSP@ConcordiaPlans.org for the most up-to-date copy of the form (the form is an Excel file).

Other CRSP
Responsibilities

Employers have the option of making contributions to their workers' accounts, as well as deciding what type of contributions they will offer. Learn more!

Contribution Changes

Employees can change their contribution amount at any time. Help them make changes.

Administrative Guidance

For further assistance with your administrative duties, please view our publications (especially the Administrative Guidance information). You can also receive help with Enrollment & Eligibility for your organization, or learn more about Health Care Reform. 
 

2017 Concordia Health Plan

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Retirement & CRSP Administration

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Health Care Reform

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