“Once you are between 40 and 59 years old, you can get health insurance coverage, either as an individual or for your family, and this is important since many companies do not offer this type of coverage for their staff and if you are a contracted worker with some of those who do, you do not qualify for it.”
Pictured above one of the leading insurance companies ” Lynch Insurance Brokers ” was on hand and attracted BARP new and old members to its booth all day.
Article first Published on
April 21, 2022 by Barbados Today online.
On just the first day of people as young as 40 years old being able to join the Barbados Association of Retired Persons (BARP), the head of the organisation said she was pleased with the number of people between the ages of 40 and 49 signing up for membership.
Speaking at BARP’s Members Fest on Wednesday, president Marilyn Rice-Bowen reported that “the younger ones are really eager to join”.
In keeping with a decision taken at the association’s annual general meeting in December last year, BARP formally lowered its membership eligibility age from 50 to 40, starting April 20.
“At 6:30 this morning, we had a man out here who said he had just turned 40 and even though we opened at eight, he wanted to make sure he was the first in line,” Rice-Bowen said as she reported on the response to the decision. “Beyond that, several people in that younger age group have come into our office so far today, and others have been signing up online.”
Asked whether that demographic did not seem relatively young considering persons do not usually retire at 40, Rice-Bowen pointed out that when BARP was established in 1996 and accepted people from 50 years old, that was not retirement age either.
“The change means that we now will have a wider range of people to plan our activities for, and members can start thinking about planning for their retirement from an earlier age. As a matter of fact, the American Association of Retired Persons dropped their membership age years ago and now takes people as young as 26 years old!” she pointed out.
Rice-Bowen highlighted some of the benefits members could obtain by signing on early.
“Once you are between 40 and 59 years old, you can get health insurance coverage, either as an individual or for your family, and this is important since many companies do not offer this type of coverage for their staff and if you are a contracted worker with some of those who do, you do not qualify for it.
“Other than health insurance, we offer life insurance for all ages, our homeowners’ policy has the lowest rates on the island, and we will soon be offering motor insurance coverage as well,” the BARP president noted.
Following Wednesday’s Members Fest, Rice-Bowen said BARP will go “on the road” in an effort to attract new members and encourage some whose memberships might have “lapsed” to return to the organisation.
“While we have not set the dates yet, we will be going into Oistins, Six Roads, Speightstown and Holetown, and we have entered a partnership with the Barbados Postal Service, and with that, we will be going into all the areas across Barbados where there are post offices since you can renew your membership at any post office on the island,” she said.
Vice president Dame Billie Miller, meantime, spoke about the organisation’s charitable trust and some of its work.
She said the trust helps members who may be in financial difficulties by providing them with small grants, and it is funded through donations in cash or kind rather than via fund-raising activities.
“We have a committee, headed by Reverend Clayton Springer, which investigates individual cases, focuses on the most needy, and then they make a decision to assist based on that. Very few, if any cases at all, have been declined over the years,” Dame Billie explained.
“For two years, the Barbados Light & Power Company donated $25 000 to the trust, and we used some of this money to help our clients prepare their homes for the hurricane season. Given the costs associated with such work, we got corporate Barbados to provide us with the necessary materials at cost price and negotiated reduced rates with contractors.”
She added that scholarships are also provided for students at the University of the West Indies specialising in gerontology, who give back by offering to give lectures on the subject as well as working at district hospitals. (DH)
