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Good news! Pension plan members will receive a pension increase effective January 1, 2025. Due to the Canada Post strike, you will receive the letter from Pension Board Chair, Anne Soh, once the strike has been resolved. You can access the letter electronically here:

Active Members Letter

Pensioners Letter

Deferred Members Letter

Pensioners and Deferred Members
Current pensioners and deferred members will receive a 2.7 percent* increase to their pension amount effective January 1, 2025.

* The Income Tax Act and regulations and the Plan, limit pension increases to the cumulative growth in Consumer Price Index since the pension commenced. For this reason, recently retired pensioners and deferred members who terminated active membership recently may see a lesser increase.

Active Members
For active members, the accrual rate will stay at 1.85 percent in 2025, up from the base rate of 1.4 percent. In 2026 the accrual rate is scheduled to return to 1.4 percent.

What Does “Accrual Rate” Mean?
The accrual rate is the rate at which you earn your pension. In 2025, you earn your pension at the rate of 1.85 percent of your pensionable earnings.

How Does This Work?
You earn a piece of pension every year that you work and contribute to the plan—like building blocks.

For example, let’s assume that a member’s pensionable earnings stayed constant at $60,000 every year, (for easy figuring). From 2019, that member would earn

At the end of your career, the annual pension amounts earned each year will add up to the total annual pension you will receive every year for the rest of your life. So, the higher amount earned in 2025 will continue to benefit you for the rest of your retired life.

What about Future Increases?
There is no automatic indexing in our plan. The Pension Board and Pension Plan Advisory Committee annually assess the resources available and determine whether there are surplus funds that can be used to increase benefits.

The process of building a family through adoption, fertility treatments, or surrogacy can be challenging and costly. GreenShield’s family-building offering allows active members to access benefits coverage that supports them in reaching the goal of growing their family.

The United Church’s group benefits plan covered fertility drugs (80% coverage up to the lifetime maximum of $3,500 per person), and now have been expanded to include:

• Surrogacy medical services
• Adoption fees:
  • Member’s legal fees
  • The adoption agency fees
  • Travel fees for the member and their spouse for necessary travel during an international adoption

An updated version of the Benefits for Active Members: Summary of Coverage will be posted to reflect these additions in the upcoming months. If you have any questions, please contact the Benefits Centre at Benefits@united-church.ca

These are early days for the federal plan, so stay tuned for any changes. We’ve just recently been advised that people who opted out of an employer’s retiree health and dental benefit plan before December 11, 2023, and cannot opt back in under the plan rules, are eligible for the Canadian Dental Care Plan (CDCP). Anyone who chooses to opt out after this date will not be eligible.

The following is the eligibility criteria of the Canadian Dental Care Plan that was updated on March 4, 2024 on the Government of Canada website.

Eligibility criteria

To qualify for the CDCP, you must:

• • not have access to dental insurance
    What does not having access to dental insurance mean?
    This means you do not have access to any type of dental insurance or coverage through:
    • your employment benefits or a family member’s employment benefits, including health and wellness accounts
    • a professional or student organization
      Note: If you’re eligible for dental coverage through your employment benefits or through a professional or student organization, you’re not eligible for CDCP. This is true even if:
      • you decide not to take it
      • you have to pay a premium for it
      • you don’t use it
    • your pension benefits or a family member’s pension benefits
      • this includes federal, provincial and territorial government employer pension plans
      • Exception: You may be eligible for the CDCP if you’re retired and:
        • you opted out of pension benefits before December 11, 2023, and
        • you can’t opt back in under the pension rules
    • coverage purchased by you or a family member or through a group plan from an insurance or benefits company
      • if you purchased your current dental insurance policy privately (and not as part of any of the coverage described above), you’re not eligible for the CDCP while that coverage is in effect.
  • have an adjusted family net income of less than $90,000
  • be a Canadian resident for tax purposes
  • have filed your tax return in the previous year

You need to meet all the eligibility criteria to qualify for the CDCP.

If you have any questions about eligibility for the Canadian Dental Care Plan, please email benefits@united-church.ca or call the Benefits Centre at 1-855-647-8222.

With new biologics entering the market rapidly, the overall cost of biologic drugs continues to significantly impact the sustainability of drug plans, including ours. GreenShield’s evidence-based biosimilar strategy combines innovative programs and approaches to ensure the best value for treatment, while optimizing resources, supporting the uptake of biosimilars, and improving access to medications for all plan members.

The originator biologic, Humira (adalimumab), continues to be one of the world’s top-selling drugs for more than two decades, treating a range of inflammatory conditions. Currently, eight approved adalimumab biosimilars in the Canadian market have all demonstrated similar safety and efficacy profiles to the originator, Humira.

Effective January 15, 2024, the following biosimilar products will be split into two categories: preferred and non-preferred products, as outlined in the table below. This means, anyone starting adalimumab therapy, effective January 15, 2024, must use a Category 1 (preferred product) below.

The choice of preferred products was evaluated based on several criteria including the formulation and format of the product, the robustness of the manufacturer’s patient co-pay assistance program, the quality of the patient support program, and the manufacturer’s track record of drug shortages. All three preferred products demonstrated excellence in these areas and maintain the opportunity for plan member choice.

Category 1 (preferred products)               Abrilada, Hyrimoz, and Hadlima

Category 2 (non-preferred products)*    Amgevita, Hulio, Idacio, Simlandi, and Yuflyma

The preferential listing applies to all Health Canada approved indications including:**

• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Juvenile Arthritis
• Psoriatic Arthritis
• Ankylosing Spondylitis
• Plaque Psoriasis
• Uveitis (adult and pediatric)
• Crohn's Disease (adult and pediatric)
• Ulcerative Colitis
• Hidradenitis Suppurativa

If a member under this program chooses to transition to an adalimumab biosimilar, they must select a Category 1 (preferred product) unless an exception applies.* 

* Products listed as Category 2 agents will be non-preferred products and will only be available to patients in exceptional circumstances (e.g., documented intolerance or adverse events to 2 preferred products).

** Preferential listing does not apply in Quebec and will only apply where GreenShield is the primary payor.

Good news! As announced in a recent letter from Pension Board Chair, Anne Soh, pension plan members will receive a pension increase effective January 1, 2024.

Pensioners and Deferred Members
Current pensioners and deferred members will receive a 4 percent* increase to their pension amount effective January 1, 2024.

* The Income Tax Act and regulations limit pension increases to the cumulative growth in Consumer Price Index since the pension commenced. For this reason, recently retired pensioners and deferred members who terminated membership recently will see a lesser increase.

Active Members
For active members, the accrual rate will stay at 1.85 percent in 2024 from the base rate of 1.4 percent. In 2025 the accrual rate is scheduled to return to 1.4 percent.

What Does “Accrual Rate” Mean?
The accrual rate is the rate at which you earn your pension. In 2024, you earn your pension at the rate of 1.85 percent of your pensionable earnings.

How Does This Work?
You earn a piece of pension every year that you work and contribute to the plan—like building blocks.

For example, let’s assume that a member’s pensionable earnings stayed constant at $60,000 every year, (for easy figuring). From 2019, that member would earn

At the end of your career, the annual pension amounts earned each year will add up to the total annual pension you will receive every year for the rest of your life. So, the higher amount earned in 2024 will continue to benefit you for the rest of your retired life.

What about Future Increases?
There is no automatic indexing of our plan. The Pension Board and Pension Plan Advisory Committee annually assess the resources available and determine whether there are surplus funds that can be used to increase benefits.

An initial communication from the Benefits Centre was mailed the week of May 23, informing pensioners of the upcoming change to how pension payments are processed. One important thing to note is that there is nothing for you, as a pensioner, to do on your end. More information about the change will be mailed in June providing contact details.

A copy of the letter is posted on the Retirement page, under Communications. If you have not received this communication by the end of the month, please e-mail pension@united-church.ca or phone the Benefits Centre at 1-855-647-8222 to ensure they have the correct address on file.

Are you looking to augment the Active member health and dental plan? Here are a few things to consider:

The United Church plan, the United Church rates

• Our plan’s premium is 100% employer paid. Your employer pays 7.77% of your pensionable earnings for the Active benefits plan, of which 5.96% is for health and dental coverage. These rates change annually and will be posted on the Pension and Benefits deductions page mid-December.
• You do not have to complete medical or health questionnaires to enroll in our benefits plan.
• We pay for expert advice to design and manage a plan for our members.
• We do not pay commissions on insurance or services we purchase for the plan – this may not be true of third parties selling individual plans, including affinity groups.
• The rates we charge reflect the anticipated costs of running the plans and there is no profit margin.

Other plans

• Will include a profit margin and possibly commission.
• Will not integrate with our plan. They will be designed to provide coverage where there is no employer sponsored coverage, and will essentially, in many cases, simply duplicate our plan’s coverage, not augment it.
  • For instance, our insurer (Green Shield Canada) can offer such individual supplemental plans but our analysis found them to represent poor value for money.
• Some options offered in the market or by affinity groups are actually ‘conversion plans’ and are only available to people who lost coverage under their employer sponsored plan. Members who were previously enrolled in the “Optional Health & Dental Plan” did not lose health and dental coverage – access to the additional coverage afforded by the Optional plan was lost.

Can I opt-out of the United Church Health & Dental Plan?

• Our plan does not allow waiver of coverage unless you have another privately sponsored plan from other employment or a spouse. (Please note, it does not save any premiums because core benefits are assessed as one benefit, fully paid by the employer.) Full participation is an integral part of the Active plan.
• We offer a broad plan to provide benefits to our members that are affordable to employers while still protecting members against catastrophic hardship.
• The Active plan is largely employer paid and includes a number of valuable benefits:
  • Employer Paid
    • Health and Dental Coverage
    • Life insurance
    • Dependent Life Insurance
    • Accidental Death & Dismemberment
    • Employee and Family Assistance Plan
    • Restorative Care Plan
  • Employee Paid
    • Long Term Disability Plan (employee paid is the common practice, allowing any benefits collected to be tax free)

A letter from the General Secretary, Michael Blair, was sent to all retirees on November 22, 2021 that outlined recent discussions and decisions about benefits for retirees of the United Church. You can review the General Secretary's letter here.

If you are a retired member of the United Church and did not receive this communication by email or Canada Post, please contact UCCBenefitsNews@united-church.ca to provide your current information so we can update our records.

As we try and uphold our commitment to you by providing more information about the Benefits Plan changes, please visit the Group Benefits page, under Life, Health & Dental, Disability Benefits. The formal benefit plan text document is in development and will be published when finalized, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, what you need to know is in the following:

• FAQ
• Comparison Chart
• Benefits Plan Video
• Benefits Plan Summary (coming soon)

Further to the announcement of changes to the group benefits plans, a letter has been sent to all plan members with more detail. It can be found in the Document Library, under Benefits Administration.

A Comparison Chart of the changes and an FAQ are also available on the same page with more information.

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact Benefits@united-church.ca. Due to current workloads, the Benefits Team will only be accepting questions by email at this time.