Interviewer: Can you please tell me who you are and a little bit of your background and what you do at Many Nations?

My name is Ryan Thompson. I’ve been with Many Nations for going on 19 years. I came from a small-town farm background, and retired from doing that kind of thing on a family farm in 2000.

I started working in Many Nations in 2004, doing something I’ve always liked to do. Previously, I always was interested in investments and financial planning, that type of thing. So even when I was farming, I was birthing my education in that area. I went to university in Saskatoon, at the University of Saskatchewan. 

I worked in the office at Many Nations in Saskatoon for quite a few of those years, working with pension. Then I started to get more interested in getting out in the field and took on doing health benefits as well. So I’ve been doing that now, and I love that part of it too, both the health benefits and the pension and traveling around and meeting with the staff and the employers. It’s been a really good experience. People are so good. 

Can you tell us a little bit about how Many Nations helps the W̱SÁNEĆ School Board Staff and what you guys do?

So we’ve got two different areas. We have the pension area, so the staff contributes to a pension and W̱SÁNEĆ matches that, so they have some funds when they retire or when they leave their position. Health benefits for W̱SÁNEĆ are done through a cooperative. It’s a pretty much full-scale coverage offered to them and covers them for everything from life insurance and disability to eyeglasses, dental work and things like that. 

Our role at Many Nations is to make sure that goes smoothly for them. If they have any issues then we’re there to help them out, whether it’s a claim issue or retirement time as far as pension and how to access it and that kind of thing. 

If any staff have questions, they can contact the Many Nations office or me directly. Most of them have got an extension through the main office here, so it comes to me. I also do onsite visits so anybody that wants to come and visit or has a question can come and ask that and we’ll get it figured out for them. 

How would someone get started and how would you recommend they manage it? 

There are a couple of things. With the benefit plan, we get them enrolled. A lot of the paperwork is done by Rochelle and Becky to get them enrolled. Then once they’re in their plan, there is a website that’s available so they can go online and check their coverages. They are also sent a summary of benefits so that they can have a quick look and see what the coverages are. Pension-wise, they also have access to the pension through a website, so they can always check that as well. Some don’t get set up or forget passcodes or something like that, but they’re always free to call our office too and we can update them on the information. 

You can get a lot of information online. They have identification cards for their benefits. They can be set up on your phone and even if it’s not direct billing, they can actually submit their claims through the online system and the funds come back to them really quickly. My understanding is two, or three days and it’s in their account.

Interviewer: Do all the benefits reset in the beginning of the year with Many Nations? 

Yes. Generally, eyeglasses and eye coverage are every two years. They can go on to their online site and find out where they are in those two years and when they’re eligible. Next, dental resets after the calendar year. There are other coverages as well. Paramedicals, where people can go for massages or they can go for chiropractic treatments, also reset after the new year.

With pension and things like that, Is there the ability for people to add more to that, if they wanted to add more and supplement it to boost it?

Absolutely. So the pension plan is set up at a 5.5% contribution rate and the Senate School board matches that 5.5%. The total amount that you can put into a pension plan in a year is 18%. So the employees can do an additional up to an additional 7% on top of the 11. That goes into a voluntary account so it’s not matched by W̱SÁNEĆ but it’s just your own saving. Those are accessible at any time if you wanted to access them. 

We have a lot of people doing that. It’s a good way to save and before you know it, you’ve got a good sum of money built up. If you have to have it for something that comes up, you can access it or otherwise you’ll just carry on building that up for when you’re going to need it in retirement. 

Is there anything I haven’t asked about that people should know about?

I want people to know that if they have problems with claims, if they have problems with direct billing through a certain paramedical or that type of thing, let us know and we can try to help solve that for you. Sometimes the different providers need to have some information to get signed up so that they can do direct bill. We’re there all the time. We have three customer service people in the office in Saskatoon who will for sure help out and try to figure out whatever you require.