Mennonite Insurance

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Marsha Okada: Serving Others at Work and at Home

By Lorie Ham

In June of 2021, longtime Mennonite Insurance employee Marsha Okada retired after 24 years of service. She actually started with the company as a temp in 1996. Sadly, she recently passed away.  We wanted to take this opportunity to share how special she was to those who worked with her.

a woman smiling at the camera

Jerry Linscheid, General Manager, worked with Marsha for the past 12 years. She came to the company with no insurance background, but was a very quick learner. “When I started working with Marsha, she was the expert on our DOS-based policy management system. She was our primary underwriter, meaning that she decided what risks we would accept or decline. Marsha was also the primary contact with our church and farm clients. Marsha took it upon herself to audit the office processes and make sure that things didn’t fall through the cracks.”

Mennonite Insurance agent Dalia Jimenez worked with Marsha from the very beginning and shared an office with her for 15 years. “She was very knowledgeable and knew our system better than anyone else.”

But to her coworkers, Marsha was more than just a great employee. “She was a great friend, always there to lend a hand,” continues Dalia. One of Dalia’s favorite memories is of the fun she had with Marsha at an Elton John concert in 2019. She also enjoyed helping Marsha with her yard sales. “Marsha always said I would make her more money when I helped her. I would tell Marsha, ‘let me tell them the price I’ll get you more.’”  

“I was trained by Marsha over 19 years ago,” shares Mennonite Insurance agent Claudia Fletes. “She was very meticulous with her work and always said there is a process to everything. She helped me understand the whole process of what we do. We became good friends over the years and I gravitated towards her. I knew I could always come to her for help. To this day, I still think, ‘What would Marsha do?’ or ‘that’s not how Marsha did things’ while at work.”

Claudia also credits Marsha with training her to be a good parent. “I was very young and had no children when I came to work here, so Marsha, aside from training me at work, also trained me on parenting. She passed down recipes, motherly advice, and life lessons. I will always be thankful for Marsha. Marsha was very special to me. She was like a second mom and I feel truly blessed to have known her.”

“Marsha was a great cook and baker. She was always there with food if someone passed away or if you had a surgery,” says Dalia. There didn’t even need to be a reason for Marsha to bring over food. Marsha lived a life of giving and helping others—that’s what gave her joy, and she was an inspiration to those around her. In her last text message to Dalia she said, she was at peace and had no regrets, she lived a good life.

Marsha’s obituary can be found at: https://rosefamilyfuneralhome.com/tribute/details/1576/Marsha-Okada/obituary.html

If you knew Marsha, please share a memory of her on our Facebook page.

Thankfulness Around the World

By Lorie Ham

It is that time of year again when people here in the United States start thinking more about being thankful. Thanksgiving is not only a time for great food and being with family, but also a time to think back on what we are thankful for this year. Thanks to the Covid vaccine, many of us will finally be able to celebrate with our families in person again.

a paper in a typewriter with thank you written in different languages

But what does it mean to be thankful? According to Webster’s Dictionary, thankful is:

  1. conscious of benefit received;
  2. expressive of thanks;
  3. well pleased.

Expressive of thanks—how do we express that we are thankful? When we are thankful for something done for us, we often tell the person, or sometimes give them a gift to express our thankfulness.      

Many people also keep thankful, or gratitude, journals to help them remember on a daily basis to be thankful. Doing this can help you have a more positive attitude about life. According to an article on CNN, research shows that grateful people tend to be healthy and happy. They exhibit lower levels of stress and depression, cope better with adversity, and sleep better.

Ever wonder how other countries express their thankfulness and gratitude? According to a 2019 article in the Star Tribune, many other cultures have festivals to give thanks for different blessings, usually involving food. Grecians, who depend on fish for protein, observe the Blessing of the Sea. In Argentina, the archbishop of Mendoza sprinkles the season’s first grapes with holy water and offers the vintage to God. The Mid-Autumn Festival is one of China’s most important traditions—ceremonies are held to give thanks for the harvest and encourage life-giving sunlight for the following year.

In Japan, people typically express gratitude by giving gifts on holidays or by bowing. The gift itself matters less than the ritual of bestowing it. In the Philippines, people value gift giving for gratitude more than saying a phrase.

The same article talks about some of the different words for thankfulness in other languages. In Japan, meals traditionally begin with a single word: itadakimasu. It can be translated to “I humbly receive this meal.” Its intention is to thank everyone who helped bring food to the table—from the hunters, farmers, and fishermen, to those who prepared it.

Saying “thank you” is a very common way of expressing thanks. On Handwritten.com, you can find many examples of how other cultures say thank you. Among those examples are takk in Iceland, danke in Germany, or obrigado in Brazil.

Being thankful and expressing thankfulness seems to be pretty much universal, even if there are many different ways to do it. Not only is it polite, but it can be as beneficial to the giver as to the receiver. Having a thankful heart all year long can be good for your health, so whatever you are thankful for this Thanksgiving and beyond, be sure not only to express it, but also to remind yourself of it every day.

What are you thankful for this year? We would love it if you would share it with us on our Facebook page.

Centennial Calendars will be Available Soon

a blue background with the words Mennonite Aid Plan 100th 1922-2022

Mennonite Aid Plan will be 100 years old in 2022.  As part of that celebration, a special wall calendar has been created.  They will be available for pick up in our office later in November.  Please call first to see if the calendars have arrived.  559-638-2327.

Smoke Damage Claims from the 2020 Creek Fire

an image of a letter going out to people in the contamination area of the 2020 Creek Fire

Recently Mennonite Aid Plan has received a number of claims from people in the Fresno/Sanger/Reedley area for smoke damage from the Creek Fire last year.  Smoke is a covered cause of loss, but there has to be actual damage for us to pay a claim.  What will happen if you file a claim is that we will schedule a smoke detection company to assess whether there is smoke damage.  They will take samples from inside and outside your home and send them to a laboratory for testing.  If the tests and photos show nominal amounts of smoke and dust, there is no damage and therefore nothing to pay.  This will be a claim on your policy.  Our advice is that if you believe you have smoke damage, turn in a claim.  If you are being encouraged to turn in a claim from an outside source and hadn’t noticed anything before, you might reconsider.

The Rise in Catalytic Converter Thefts

By Lorie Ham

According to an NBC News article in July of 2021, as prices of precious metals spiked,thefts of catalytic converters skyrocketed from an average of 108 per month in 2018 to 2,347 in December 2020.

Recently, one of Mennonite Insurance’s customers experienced such a theft. We will call him John for the sake of this article. John woke up one morning to go to work and heard a roar when he started his car. He soon realized the cause was that his catalytic converter had been stolen. Though he didn’t hear anything during the night, he knew it had to have been stolen then. John’s car had been parked on the street, and based on security camera videos it appeared that they had jacked up one side and cut out the converter in just about two minutes time.

Photo credit Rick Fletes

Since he hasn’t yet heard back from the claims department, John doesn’t know how much his out of pocket cost will be to replace it, but he does know how much the overall cost was. “It was $674, but my mechanic said it can vary greatly from one vehicle to another. I’ve heard of repairs costing over $2,000.”

Thankfully, John has comprehensive coverage instead of just liability coverage. “If you just have auto liability coverage, you are out the several thousand dollars to replace the converter,” says Jerry Linscheid, Chief Executive Officer with Mennonite Aid Plan/Mennonite Insurance Services.

“In auto insurance, we often think of the property and liability coverages independently,” continues Jerry. “The state requires minimum liability coverage. The liability coverage is the amount the insurance company would pay to someone who you injure or whose property you damage.”

However, the property coverage is the amount the insurance company would pay to you to fix your car. The state does not require that you carry property coverage, but if you have a loan, your lender will require it. “Property coverage has two components: collision (when you run into another car) and comprehensive (other than collision, like theft, hail, etc.) You will almost always have a deductible for comprehensive and collision coverages.”

Hopefully, you will never experience this kind of theft, but if you do, John says that it is important to contact [your insurance claims department] before you get it repaired. “And be sure to take photos to document the damage.”

The City of Garden Grove, one of many cities that have recently noticed a rise in the theft of catalytic converters, shares tips on their website of things you can do to help prevent such a theft, such as parking in a well-lit area, parking in a garage where possible, and attaching a security device to the converter.

If you are unsure of what your auto coverage is, we highly recommend finding out so you aren’t caught unprepared if something like this happens to you. Mennonite Insurance writes auto insurance and would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

While Mennonite Insurance is the actual company (pays the claims) for homeowners coverage, they are just the agent for auto insurance. “We would be able to write for companies like Personal Express, Safeco, Travelers, and others,” shares Jerry.

You can contact Mennonite Insurance by calling 559-638-2327. If you have experienced this kind of theft, we would like to hear about your experiences and if there is any wisdom you can share from the experience. Feel free to share on our Facebook page.