Ivy Hartman: Welcome to the 2007 Novel conference in Atlanta, Georgia I’m Ivy Hartman and with me is Sarah Reemtsma of Royal Neighbors of America. And Royal Neighbors of America is a unique organization because it's a not for profit life insurance group explain to us how that works.
Sarah Reemtsma: Well we are fraternal organization offering life insurance and annuities and we are unique because in 1895 we were founded by nine women and the basis for that is because at that time woman could not purchase life insurance. So this woman’s applied it to start the organization to provide life insurance for their families and today the company is still run by woman.
Ivy Hartman: Now normally, I mean I’m guessing a small business aspect or even personal ads for life insurance through a poor profit company. What are some of the advantages in purchasing life insurance to that not for Profit Company?
Sarah Reemtsma: The benefit is that all of the profits from the insurance premium are then turned around and put back into the communities where our members are located. Their headquarters in rock island Illinois but we have a chapter system throughout the entire country and we fund those chapters to do community service projects in their own communities and better their communities and the people they know. We also offer member benefits including disaster aid and discount prescription programs and scholarship programs so that is how the dollars are then turned around and put right back into the community.
Ivy Hartman: I mean talked about being a fraternal organization I think of other fraternal organizations like the Scottish right or the mason things like that, is that—could you describe a different layers that accuracies their membership.
Sarah Reemtsma: There is a membership if you own—they have a policy with royal neighbors who automatically become a member or and then you're assigned to a chapter. So we have a chapter system you can either become a general member or just pay a low about a yearly fee of 14.95 or you can have a policy with us either way. But that you are involved in a chapter system that betters your community and it's funded through Royal Neighbors of America to carry out our mission.
Ivy Hartman: How did this small business owners could benefit from this?
Sarah Reemtsma: As a way to provide additional benefits to their members that they’ve decided to start a chapter, it's just one more thing that they can offer then and we can help with that.
Ivy Hartman: Awesome do you have a website that people can contact you through.
Sarah Reemtsma: Yes, we are www.RoyalNeighbors.org.
Ivy Hartman: Good and one last question, what are some specific things going on the communities and some of the fraternal areas or membership areas that you could tell us about.
Sarah Reemtsma: There are many fund raising efforts in the communities, we had actually had a chapter in Greenford, Kansas that was affected by that terrible tornado and we sat right in and provided disasters aids who are members as well as the community and we've contacted chapters in the surrounding areas who tried to come up with ideas for fund raising and Royal Neighbors of America have the program called “Matching Funds” and we matched dollar for dollar up to a thousand dollar of their for fund raising effort.
Ivy Hartman: Wonderful.
Sarah Reemtsma: It is just a wonderful organization.
Ivy Hartman: Sarah thank you for enlightening us today and you know you can keep it on sbtv.com as we continue to cover the 2007 Novel Conference in Atlanta.
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