By: Jake the Snake
I have written in this space recently about the Knights Insurance Program being a fraudulent racketeering scheme, we have linked the article here if you choose to revisit it. However just when you thought this scheme was coming to a halt, they find a new low. Get this, the insurance program is now open to not just current Knights and their immediate family, now it’s open to anyone! Yeah, they say only to practicing Catholics but how does one identify or define that these days? I know quite a few people who call themselves Catholic yet haven’t been to church in decades! Or better yet how about the “Chreasters” as I call them who only show up on Christmas and Easter? Better yet, the Insurance Agents who sell these policies have territories that cover multiple churches, no way they even know if these people are confirmed into the church!
So now anyone can sign up for our life insurance, annuities, 401k, and get this, long term care insurance! Pay most attention to the last one, almost no one sells long term care anymore because it is a huge money loser! CalPERS quit selling a long time ago and I cannot find any reputable carrier who sells these plans! So now we have opened the flood gates to anyone. The only requirement is…..wait for it……wait…….you must join the Knights within 60 days of buying the insurance. So in essence the Knights gain a member for each policy sold. So I guess this is a way to grow membership right?
Incorrect. This is merely a way to prop up their insurance scheme, that by the way, is seeing its coffers for paying claims getting closer and closer to zero. They will sell this product, then the insured will have to join a council, and in theory become a dues paying member. Here is the problem, if you are an insured member you do not have to pay your dues, because the order cannot drop an insurance member! Even if your dues are in arrears over 10 years…does not matter if you have an insurance policy that you pay on!
(Sounds suspiciously like the CRA membership model of not paying dues as long as you are willing to be a delegate to local endorsing conventions.)
But wait, there is more! The council that you belong to has to send a per capita payment each year to Supreme HQ back in New Haven, Connecticut, whether the local unit collected dues from you or not. Think of it like a pyramid scheme, the folks in New Haven get paid for every member from the local council, regardless of whether their dues are paid or not!
That my loyal readers is the definition of a pyramid scheme, and they have made us dues paying members subsidize the non-payers for the betterment of the fat cats in New Haven.
In a pyramid scheme, an organization compels individuals who wish to join to make a payment. In exchange, the organization promises its new members a share of the money taken from every additional member that they recruit. The directors of the organization (those at the top of the pyramid) also receive a share of these payments. For the directors, the scheme is potentially lucrative—whether or not they do any work, the organization’s membership has a strong incentive to continue recruiting and funneling money to the top of the pyramid.
Pyramid scheme
However worst of all is they are poisoning their own local councils, due to the unknown. Rather than allowing the local membership to vet new candidates this process can be circumvented, allowing a member who is a complete unknown to have voting rights! Or even worse what if they try to spearhead a takeover? I used to belong to a church, who like any other Roman Catholic Church desperate for members let in quite a few homosexual couples, they worked their way onto the parish council (the governing body) and major changes happened. Suddenly the procession included streamers and dancers, the choir was replaced with a band, the congregation swayed during the songs, the sermon turned into something you would expect from a televangelist church! I no longer felt “in” and I left the church.
Sadly the same thing will happen to the local Knights councils. This is nothing but desperation on the part of a group who knows the gig is up. With no power to kick these members out, an aging population who uses the meetings and dinner as a chance to hide from their wives, or drink all you can for $7, the writing is on the wall. Word to the wise, I would buy no product from this group, as most of their insured membership will be looking up at the ground not down at it in the next 15 years.
The program is going insolvent and this is yet another last gasp effort to shore it up. The next step will be allowing any and every one to join the insurance program and the requirement of being a “practicing Catholic in accordance with the Holy See” will be removed. All this just so a group of incompetent jackholes in New Haven can make money off the dues paying members.
Lee Ann Harper, I am coming directly after you in my next blog, after what you did to me! She is the definition of an incompetent Jackhole.
Jake the Snake
Knight of Columbus