Dear Pastors,
We pray that you are blessed in this Advent and Christmas season. Your Benefits Team is preparing to communicate your 2022 personal pension elections to Wespath Benefits and Investments and we want you to be aware of an upcoming communication you may receive from them as a result. Their system is set to automatically send a generic form letter to participants who may have new pension elections or compensation details that impact their United Methodist Personal Investment Plan (UMPIP) contribution. This will be helpful information to provide to your church treasurer so that they will know how much to withhold from your paychecks starting in January.
However, there are two specific points about your UMPIP enrollment through the NC Conference which differ from the general points in Wespath’s letter:
- Any time throughout the year when you want to make a change or correction to the amount of your personal contribution, please reach out to your NC Conference Benefits Team at this email address. DO NOT send contribution changes to Wespath directly. Contacting us will ensure changes are made in a timely manner in both our and their systems and that accurate pension bills will be sent to your church.
- If you are participating in the NC Conference’s Transition Fund in addition to the UMPIP, the single amount shown in Wespath’s letter should match the COMBINATION of these two contributions. You can find your UMPIP contribution on Line 15 and your Transition Fund contribution on Line 16 of the Clergy Compensation Worksheet in the Online Data Collection System. Add these two amounts together and you should see it matches the amount in Wespath’s letter. If you see any discrepancies, please do not hesitate to contact your NC Conference Benefits Team.
We hope this information provides clarity to you and your church. We always welcome any way in which we may be of service to you.