Under the Collective Agreement between The Corporation of the City of Scarborough and The Scarborough Professional Fire Fighters’ Association Local 626, Article 1203 stipulated that “The Corporation shall provide a paid-up life insurance policy of three thousand dollars($3,000.00) for employees retiring on pension”. Please be aware that this policy is still in effect. John Barker did a lot of work on this and has found the process can be stressful. John has been kind enough to share the findings of his endeavors, please see his remarks below.
Note:- If you have not recently done so updating your estate plan would be a good idea.
From John Barker
I just want to inform all former Scarborough Fire Fighters of the paid-up life Insurance policy of $3000.00 in existence. For all of us that were there through amalgamation, I suggest you get a copy of the acknowledgment of this policy. You can do this by calling the Team Central number at 416 338-0016. This is a generic number and the person you talk to may know nothing about this. Just tell them that this is a benefit. They may try to direct you to pensions. Politely tell them they have no clue and you would like your request sent to Jason Lee in benefits. The policy carrier is Manulife Financial and the policy number is #39884. They will send you back a letter and it will have your beneficiary on it. You will also get a form to fill out in case your beneficiary has changed. Please do this because when the time comes, and believe me it will, you don’t want to make someone’s life harder than it already is.
Now unfortunately for those who left before amalgamation, this is a much more difficult process. Upon your demise whoever is the beneficiary (or Executor) has to call the city. Probably the Team Central number would be a good start (416 338-0016). I can almost guarantee you will be talking greek to them but the person you should talk to is Stephanie Caines. She knows about this policy. The policy number is 321518 (LL10876-not really sure what this is) and each one of you has a policy yourself which is your Scarborough payroll number. Now the city has agreed that this policy exists. For your executor, this will be the hardest thing to do and will take months probably. Stephanie Caines has sent a letter saying that either the city or Sun Life will pay this out. Now I do know Hal Lapps’ wife Sandra got the payout from SunLife. Sandra also told me she used a company Peacehold Estate Documentation, which took a lot of the stress out of the whole thing. At a cost of around $500.00, it may be a good investment.
I do hope this info can clear up some of the mess of this policy. It is not a lot of money but to me, this was and is a benefit that all my Scarborough brothers and sisters are entitled to.
John Barker jgbarks@hotmail.com
Current as of April 9, 2021
Pensions and Benefits – Team Central number – 416-338-0016
Stephanie Caines – stephanie.caines@toronto.ca / Jason Lee – jason.lee@toronto.ca
Fraternally,
Chuck West