NAMB reneges on life insurance promised to forced retirees

“We planned our funerals around that promise.”

Bert Ross remembers the paperwork he signed in December 2010, when he and nearly a hundred others were pushed out of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board in a large downsizing.

“The promised life insurance was part of the retirement agreement I signed in December 2010 when I was downsized along with many others,” Ross explained.

Now that’s being taken away by NAMB.

Duane Davis, another long‑time missionary, describes the coverage NAMB now has canceled: “The life insurance policy was not great — $20,000 on the missionary and $10,000 on the spouse. … I have depended upon that burial insurance … 30-plus years serving under NAMB’s umbrella and now I learn my wife and I won’t receive the burial insurance we have been depending upon to take care of our final expenses. It breaks my heart as well as my bank account.”

These aren’t people who rode a gravy train. One year Davis’ salary reached $40,000. He and the others affected by this sudden loss of benefits served in hard places, with modest pay, and were told in return a small death benefit would be available at the end.

Just days before Thanksgiving, NAMB sent letters saying that coverage will end.

It’s not just that life insurance coverage that’s ending but also a health care savings account. Participants in that plan have been given less than two months to zero out their balances or lose funds accumulated there. Some retirees have let those funds accumulate to use as a health care emergency fund and stand to lose up to $10,000.

And this is not the first time NAMB has reneged on promised retirement benefits for former staff. One of the most notable cases occurred in 2006. At that time, Bob Banks, former executive vice president of NAMB’s predecessor organization, went to bat for hundreds of retirees and got the coverage restored. Banks died in 2023, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone left to fight the battle this time.

The leadership’s public message is that this is a painful but necessary stewardship decision driven by rising costs. However, when we compare that claim to NAMB’s own audited financial statements from 2010 through 2025, a very different picture emerges.

What was promised in 2010?

In late 2010, shortly after Kevin Ezell became president, NAMB launched a major downsizing. Baptist Press reported that about a third of NAMB’s staff would leave through retirements or other reductions, and that 80 or more staff members took a retirement incentive package. A photo from the event shows a long table of plaques prepared for those being pushed out.

Retirees from that wave say the package included:

• A modest lump‑sum or severance
• Health benefit access under NAMB’s post-retirement plan
• A small group life‑insurance benefit (commonly described as $20,000 on the retiree and $10,000 on the spouse)

For people in their late 50s and 60s, having lived with ministry salaries, that life insurance promise matters. It’s essentially burial coverage. It allowed them to retire — or accept forced retirement — with some confidence that their spouses and families wouldn’t have to scramble for funeral expenses.

In other words, this wasn’t a “nice‑to‑have perk.” For many, it was part of the moral and practical basis on which they signed those retirement agreements.

What has NAMB now done?

Fast‑forward to Nov. 18. Retirees received a form letter from NAMB announcing the retiree life insurance program will be terminated.

The letter frames this as a stewardship decision driven by increasing insurance costs for a closed pool of aging retirees. It says this decision is similar to what other SBC entities already have done.

It expresses appreciation for retirees but offers no concrete replacement. For many who live on limited pensions and Social Security, buying private life insurance in their 70s or 80s is impossible.

“For many who live on limited pensions and Social Security, buying private life insurance in their 70s or 80s is impossible.”

Is this necessary?

The key question is: Does NAMB’s financial condition actually require this cut? Their own audited reports say no.

NAMB’s financial statements actually show net assets and liquidity have grown dramatically in recent years.

NAMB’s audited SBC annual reports published in SBC Annuals show total net assets have grown from $257 million in 2010 to $435 million at their peak in 2021.

In simple terms: Since the 2010 downsizing, NAMB’s net assets have increased by about $150 million. Cash, investments and other liquid assets also have grown, not shrunk.

Further, the post-retirement obligation has been cut in half since 2012

Look at NAMB’s GAAP “post-retirement benefit obligation” — the liability that covers retiree health care and certain other benefits — and you’ll see it was about $101.8 million in 2012. In 2013, after a major plan change, the obligation dropped to $48.8 million. NAMB notes explain that a redesign of one plan reduced the liability by about $47 million in one year.

In recent reports, that retiree obligation has been listed in the $36 million to $47 million range — less than half of what it was in 2012.

NAMB’s own notes repeatedly state:

• There are no plan assets; benefits are paid as claims are incurred.
• Expected annual employer contributions have generally been in the $3.5 million to $4.5 million range over the coming year.
• Future benefit payments over the next 10 years are projected but manageable.

What does that mean in layman’s terms? NAMB has more than doubled its investments and unrestricted net assets since 2010 while cutting its retiree obligation almost in half through plan changes.

“NAMB has more than doubled its investments and unrestricted net assets since 2010 while cutting its retiree obligation almost in half through plan changes.”

Whatever is driving the life‑insurance cancellation, it is not an exploding retiree liability on the balance sheet.

Reserve funds

Meanwhile, board‑designated reserves have ballooned.

NAMB’s “net assets without donor restrictions” include a large category the board itself designates for purposes like church loans, contingencies, property and “Send North America” strategic initiatives.

These funds grew from $220 million in 2013 to more than $300 million in 2021.

These designations are self‑imposed. They are not legal donor restrictions. The board can change them at any time.

Yet in the 2021–2025 notes on “Liquidity and Availability of Resources,” NAMB presents these designations alongside donor restrictions to show only about $60 million of its financial assets are “available” in the coming year. That may be technically accurate under the accounting standard, but it can create a misleading sense of scarcity when we’re talking about a small burial‑insurance promise to retirees.

If NAMB can designate $299 million for internal priorities, it could designate a few million to honor promises made to the people who built the foundation it stands on.

Investment risk

Over this same time period, NAMB’s investment risk has increased, not decreased. NAMB has shifted a growing portion of its investment portfolio into Level 3 “nontraditional investments” — infrastructure funds, long/short equity hedge funds, direct lending and other pooled investments.

NAMB reported increasing balances of Level 3 assets from about $44 million to $48 million in 2012–2013 to more than $100 million by 2021.

In some years, NAMB has realized large gains on investments; in others, it has reported losses and covered operating deficits by selling investments. That is not unusual for an organization with a large portfolio.

But it is striking that the board is willing to expand exposure to complex, higher‑risk investments while telling retirees a $20,000 life‑insurance promise must be cut for “stewardship” reasons.

“It is striking that the board is willing to expand exposure to complex, higher‑risk investments while telling retirees a $20,000 life‑insurance promise must be cut for ‘stewardship’ reasons.”

If anything, GAAP financials suggest NAMB has more flexibility today, not less, to keep faith with these retirees.

And don’t overlook that NAMB spends about $35 million a year on personnel costs. The retiree insurance benefit is a small part of personnel expenditures.

In short, NAMB is not in “panic mode” cutting overhead. The organization has chosen to expand programs, staff and administrative spending while trimming a comparatively tiny retiree benefit.

Accounting and transparency red flags

Taken together, several patterns in the financials and benefit decisions raise questions that should be probed.

First, promises vs. plan changes. Retirees like Bert and Duane say life insurance was part of the written retirement agreements offered in the 2010 downsizing. In 2013, NAMB executed a major plan change that drastically reduced its post-retirement obligation by about $47 million. Churches and donors were not broadly informed that promised retiree benefits were being re‑written.

Now, another promise — burial life insurance — is being cancelled, again with little clarity about how it interacts with those earlier contracts.

Second, what about that huge, sudden liability drop in 2013? GAAP allows plan amendments, but a one‑year cut of nearly 50% in retiree obligations is extraordinary.

At a minimum, trustees should ensure the communication to affected retirees matched what was described in Note 9 of the 2014 SBC Annual. The 2014 report acknowledges a $9.8 million prior‑period understatement of the post-retirement liability due to actuarial error and restates opening balances accordingly. That kind of adjustment is not necessarily wrongdoing, but it is significant and suggests the need for heightened oversight of how NAMB models retiree promises.

Third, there has been a steady thinning of disclosures over time. Earlier reports gave detailed tables on church loans, delinquent loans by age, Level 3 asset roll‑forwards and extensive narrative on retiree benefits. Later reports, especially by 2025, compress or omit some of those reconciliations and schedules.

Again, that may comply with minimum GAAP, but it reduces transparency at the very time concerns are being raised.

Fourth, labeling of board‑designated reserves has been used to imply scarcity. Presenting $166 million to $175 million of board‑designated net assets as “unavailable” for general expenditure can make it sound as if NAMB’s hands are tied. In reality, the board could choose to redesignate a small portion to keep faith with retirees. The scarcity is self‑created.

Fifth, NAMB clearly has a risk tolerance for investments vs. risk aversion to retiree promises. The board’s willingness to expand into hedge funds, direct lending and other Level 3 alternatives suggests NAMB is comfortable bearing market risk.

Yet the refusal to retain modest, predictable burial benefits for aging missionaries sends the opposite message about bearing relational and moral risk.

Sixth, the optics are bad. This is nothing new for NAMB, which has proved to be accountable to no one. Yet today NAMB is cutting retiree life insurance after years of strong market returns and aggressive expansion of new initiatives, not in the wake of a market crash or catastrophic loss.

Remember: There is no obvious crisis in the audited statements that would force this specific cut right now.

If NAMB can afford hedge funds and infrastructure funds, it can afford to bury its missionaries with dignity — and to keep the promises it made when it asked them to step aside.

 

Editor’s note: A list of NAMB trustees is published here.