Glancing in the rearview as we journey forward together

This past January, there was no way anyone could foresee what was emerging on the horizon. The turn was sudden, sharp, and a total blur. But it’s true that difficult events can bring about the best in others: 2020 has shown how remarkably adaptable and resilient folks can be.

Like so many others, the insurance industry immediately faced many, many challenges this past March. For us, the one thing that became instantly clear was that everyone’s health and safety had to be top priority. Within a day, MAA staff embraced a remote reality and seamlessly moved all operations to their homes, even as they were called upon more than ever to help guide our clients forward through this time of adversity.

MAA’s team is our absolute backbone and core. I am truly grateful for the way they adapted their routines and procedures to serve our clients (and each other) the last several months. Their dedication remains steadfast, their commitment to professional excellence never clearer.

Zoom meetings, teleconferences, and virtual conversations are now familiar elements within our daily routines. Together, we’ve served our clients in new and innovative ways, creating a presence in virtual spaces.

How to run a viable business in 2020 also became an absolute uncertainty. Still, MAA’s mutual insurance partners stepped up to the challenge, offering premium relief to our policyholders while maintaining their own long standing charitable traditions within their local communities.

After such an exacting year, it’s difficult to speak of the future without first looking in the rearview mirror. In its 135-year existence, MAA has weathered recessions, a depression, natural disasters and now, this pandemic. It is clear that God has blessed our mission and purpose, allowing MAA to stand the test of time. This is what gives me faith and confidence in an optimistic long-term view.

Just as we help our clients to protect what they have through insurance, MAA also strives to do its best to be a responsible steward of its own resources. We are increasing equity, preserving liquidity, managing conservatively, and adapting operationally. You will see our core values resonate all the louder as we look to our strategic plan to shape our work in 2021 and beyond.

Through the multitude of new challenges born from the coronavirus outbreak, we have all said: “We are in this together.” Sometimes I have found myself asking how that can be true when there is no common date to punctuate when normal became broken, the inherent effects of COVID impacting each one of us differently. I have resolved that the answer is not at all cliché: We are in this together as fellow human beings. Not us or them; not right or wrong, left or right. Just you and me, trying to find direction and purpose in this stressful, painful season.

Perhaps it’s times like these which make being part of Mutual Aid Agency even more meaningful. The act of purchasing insurance may seem insignificant, but giving your business to MAA unites us as a community of human beings doing good in the world.

How?
MAA tithes a portion of your insurance premiums back to those in need through our own outreach
ministry, the Share Fund. With a real desire to be more than just insurance, the Share Fund’s impact on the lives of others is what makes MAA organizationally whole. Maybe it can also help us, as individuals, to feel more whole, too.

THANK YOU for your loyalty to MAA and for your commitment to caring and sharing together. We will be ready to serve you, no matter what future storm lies ahead.

May your 2021 be filled with kindness, health, blessings and hope! In gratitude,
Kimberly Rutter General Manager