Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services (CFMWS) - General
Video / August 1, 2024
Transcript
Thank you and good day everyone. On behalf of Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services, I'm happy to be here as the representative of Military Family Services. My name is Angela, and I would like to introduce my colleagues that will join our presentation today.
My name is Jamie Theriault, I'm a financial planner at SISIP Financial. And I'm Keely Cliche and I help with the insurance needs at SISIP Financial.
I am really pleased to be here today to talk about an important time in you and your family's life, whether you're transitioning from active military service to civilian life, or perhaps transitioning from regular to the Reserve force. We understand the feeling of uncertainty that may come with change, but we want you to know that we are here to support you in this next phase of your journey.
Today we will provide you with an overview of the programs and services available to you through CFMWS with an in-depth focus on our Military Family Services and SISIP Financial division and how they can benefit you. CFMWS is a purpose-built social enterprise. This means that we earn profits through some of our business lines and activities like CANEX, SISIP Financial and PSP Recreation and Leisure, and reinvest these profits into programs and services to benefit CAF members, the veterans and their families. If you haven't done so yet, I encourage you to become CF 1 member today. Our members get exclusive discounts and savings, earned rewards, and most importantly, save money. Feel free to scan the QR code to sign up through CF1 membership. You have access to our exclusive deals through our affinity partners like BMO, the official Bank of the Canadian Armed Forces, the Personal insurance, as well as CANEX Home Heating. Visit the CF1 website for more information and details of the benefits available to you through membership.
CANEX is Canada's military store and continues to be available to you at locations across Canada and online 24/7 at canex.ca. Enjoy exclusive benefits and added value through the CANEX CF1 No Interest Credit Plan, CANEX Price Match Guarantee, Members only pricing, CANEX CF1 Rewards points and more.
Strengthening the culture of fitness in the CAF is a priority. Personnel Support Programs (PSP) include fitness, sports, recreation and health promotion which play integral roles in this endeavour. We are here to help you and your family maintain an active life and stay connected to your community. Whether it's using our CAF fitness virtual training, discovering a new hobby with one of our classes and workshops, or volunteering with CFMWS, PSP offers a variety of programs and services for everyone.
At Military Family Services, we provide support to all military families in Canada and abroad. We do this through both local and national services, the major elements that you can see on the screen. In this presentation, we'll start by showing you a few of the ways that we can help you and your loved ones both before and after release from the Forces. Next, we'll show you where you can access the supports from Transition Centers to MFRCs to the Family Information Line, which is here for you and your loved ones 24/7, 365 days a year.
This is an overarching graphic that captures what we do at the Virtual MFRC. What is the virtual MFRC? It's a virtual service which is intended to provide services to families when and where they're needed. The Family Information Line is part of the virtual MFRC. It's staffed by counselors who provide information, referral and psycho emotional support. The Family Information Line is confidential, personal, bilingual and free. We offer support, referrals, reassurance and crisis management to the military community. We serve CAF members, veterans, and their families, both immediate and extended. You may remember or have heard of the Mission Information line. Well, the Family Information Line stems from that line.
The Family Transition Center team supports families of CAF members who are transitioning from military to civilian life, ill or injured, and families of the fallen. Family Liaison Officers, Family Transition Advisors, and Veteran Family Program Coordinators. This framework is a multidimensional concept that contributes to an individual's overall well-being. These determinants are interconnected and can influence each other. This holistic approach to well-being is what the Family Transition Advisors (FTAs) use when considering factors to promote a balanced life for families as they determine their strengths and needs in each of these areas. This will allow the FTAs to provide personalized and targeted support, resources and referrals to services that meet their individual unique needs and help them develop effective coping strategies to adapt to their new circumstances.
The 8 domains of family resiliency are a framework used to assess and promote the resiliency of families in various contexts. These domains highlight different aspects of family functioning and well-being that contribute to the family's overall resiliency. The FTA will also include confidentiality and consent forms for the signature for the case files.
Military Family Resource Centers are key enablers for the delivery of services to military and veteran families. The majority of MFRCs are not-for-profit. Provincially incorporated organizations governed by the Board of Directors composed of 51% military family members. MFS, as a steward of specific services for military and veteran families, overseas governance, financial resources and programming direction for the MFRCs to deliver the national programs. Locally MFRCs also work with the Base and Wing Command teams to offer services based on community need.
As organizations with charitable status, MFRCs can receive donations and supplement site specific programming and services outside of the public funds they receive for delivery of the MVFSP. MFRCs are key partners in working with the community and national stakeholders to provide wrap around support to enhance family health and well-being through collective impact. Example of these collaborations are through Helping Hands committees, Family Violence Awareness teams, advocating for families provincially and federally.
Here are many of the resources available to you and your family leading up to your release. At Military Family Services we support CAF families in navigating the challenges that can arise due to military service. Our key services include financial support, especially access to grants, scholarships, and loans available through Support Our Troops. Spousal employment opportunities through the Military Spousal Employment Network, as well as Career Joy Employment counseling. Emergency Family Care Assistance to reimburse families when family care plans fail. Established local connections through SISIP Financial and local MFRC services and community partners. Mental health support is offered at various levels. Tailored, standardized, navigational support is provided by Family Transition Advisors located within each transition unit across Canada. Following your release, there are still several resources available to you. Financial support is limited, however, there are still dedicated grants, scholarships, and loans available for the veteran community.
In terms of employment, veteran spouses will have access to the military spousal Employment network social media groups to remain aware of employment opportunities, and local career fairs. In terms of mental support, ongoing access is available for intensive help with Crisis, the Kids Crisis Text Line through the Kids Help phone and virtual counseling for the family members through the Family Information Line (free bookable session with the same counselor). In terms of social support, opportunities continue for peer support through social media groups and virtual opportunities as well as volunteer opportunities both nationally and locally.
So now let's follow along with an example of a military family experience. A military member was releasing in about two months when the FTA got the referral. FTA met with his partner who was looking for work. She is well educated with her Master’s but was having trouble finding a job in her specific career focus. They have no children. The FTA met with the partner in person and completed a FRST assessment. FTA contacted the employment part of the MFRC and talked about their services. They stated that the individual could be referred over for support. The family member was provided information about the MFRC employment services and how to connect. The FTA also introduced the individual to the Military Spouses Employment Network services. The FTA did a quick employment search and found a job that she would qualify for in this area. FTAs always provide the information for SISIP and the FIL with the families to ensure they are informed of these resources. The FTA worked on the Family Transition plan with all of this information on it and sent a family transition plan to the individual. The individual was very appreciative of the information. A 30 day follow up was done. Found out that the individual had found a job in her field and was so happy about that. Followed up at 60 days post release. Found that the individual was looking for support in a different area, mental health for a family member and provided community services in that area as well as the FIL again. Last follow up at 90 days, everything was good.
MFS continues to develop and modernize services for families to ensure they are aware of what is available to support them throughout the various stages of their military journey. Whether through MFS directly, MFRCs or the virtual MFRC we work to ensure that if we can't provide the support, we will work with our partners to find a suitable provider in that area of need.
Good luck with your military to civilian transition, whatever the next chapter looks like for you and your family. Thank you for your service and we hope you and your family are well supported to set you up for a seamless transition. Thank you everyone. And now I'll pass over to my colleague Jamie from SISIP. Thank you.
So, releasing from the CAF does come with a lot of financial implications. And we're there to guide you from the beginning, all along the way at every stage of your life. So, when you first enter the CAF, if you get married, if you have children, estate planning, those kinds of things, we are there to guide you in every step along the way. And we are very familiar with the military journey. So, we're very equipped to help you with all that. Life does have a lot of twists along the way, but we are there to guide you.
Many of the questions that we do hear from releasing members is about pension decisions, about what do I do with my severance, tax advice, investing, insurance, those kinds of things. What options do I do with my pension? I might have different choices of what I can do depending on where I am in my career. What other income will I have when I release? Will I go on to a second job? Should I be investing for my kids’ education? What options are available to me for retirement planning, RRSPs, TFSAs, those kinds of things? What about life insurance after I do release? Is that something that's available to me? What would be the best option for me? So, we are here to make sure that you do take the best steps for you and your family and to give you guidance along the way.
When you do release from the military, depending on where you are in regard to your career, you could have different choices of what you do with your pension. Do I take what's called a transfer value, which is a big lump sum and there's a lot of tax implications when you do that. One thing to be aware of, am I entitled to an immediate annuity, which means I start to receive my pension right away? Am I entitled to what's called a deferred annuity, which is my pension starts later on?
So there are multiple choices depending on whether it can be a medical release or whether it is a voluntary release. And we are very familiar with all the choices, and we can help guide you with what is best for you and your family. Also, you have access to SISIP financial counsellors which is something that can help you with budgeting, spending, debt management, credit, those kinds of things and support our troops. They can help get you emergency loans and things like that if it's required. Financial counsellors through SISIP are only available to you while you're in the military. After you release, it will be through Veteran Affairs Canada, and they would be able to assist you with any needs in regards to that. But we are able to help you with those things. Financial advice and your pension.
So, lifestyle is the way that you live and your personal value is what's most important to you. Setting goals and things like that are things that we can help you and make sure that you achieve your goals. Money choices are related to your lifestyle, your values, your goals. So, there is a link between everything and really its an understanding, starting with what is my goal and then we can help you with what you need to do to get to that goal. In regard to your pension, like I said before, depending on where you are in your career, you might have different choices and what's best for you.
Lieutenant Colonel Kathy Smith has been there for 30 years. She wants to retire and maintain the same lifestyle, her house that she has, her travel, her dreams with her spouse. MWO John Kim, they want to start their own business. What kind of implications would there be involved in that? Captain Marie Lee has a job in the federal public Service, which is something that we see very, very often. Maybe she's getting a pension right away. She's going on to a second career. Tax implications, those kinds of things are things to think about. She wants to pay off her mortgage and be debt free. So, we can help you come up with the strategy and how to achieve that. PO Sam Anand is young; he has a young family. He is going on to a second career, a long career ahead of him. He's focused on his children and saving for his children's education. This is something we can guide you along as well, what's available to you and how to save for your children's education.
Financial advice helps you make informed decisions, and this is something that we are able to assist you with. So, once we have an understanding of what your goal is, what you're trying to achieve, this is where we can help you get to where you want to go. So, during the first meeting, we have what's called a discovery meeting, which is something where we find out more about you. How do you spend your time? What goals do you have over the next couple of years and maybe over the next 10 years? Where do you want to go? How do you make your financial decisions? How do you feel about money and finances in general? Where are you currently in regard to investments and things like that? And financial advice can also help you with your pension decisions. So having a good understanding of where you are, where you want to go, what you need to get there can perhaps make you make a decision, a better decision in regards to your pension and the choices that you have.
Also, when developing a financial plan, we do talk about things like your severance pay. So if you are entitled to a severance pay, severance pay can be a maximum of 30 years over your lifetime. It's seven days of pay for every year of eligible service, complete and partial. If you are entitled to a severance pay, there is what's called the eligible versus the non eligible amounts.
The biggest difference between that is if you have what's called the eligible amount years of service before 1996. If you want to put that into an RRSP, you don't need any RRSP room to do that. If you don't have any eligible amount, you only have non eligible amount or a mix of both, you need RRSP room to put that amount into your RRSP from your severance. And that is something we can guide you with and see what makes sense for you. Should you take it as a payout? Should you put it into your RRSP if you have the room? So, these are things that SISIP can guide you along and give you financial advice.
Also, government pensions, we can help you guide you on decisions for your Canada Pension Plan or Quebec Pension Plan depending on where you live. So, for the Quebec Pension Plan or the Canada Pension Plan, you can apply as early as age 59 and one month and you can start taking it any age between the age of 60 or the age of 70. The biggest thing to understand about that is if you take it earlier, it does get reduced because you took it earlier. If you wait and you delay it and you take it later on, you get more for the rest of your life.
But it's always a question of how long am I going to live? No one knows the answer for that, but we can come up with a plan and help guide you on what makes sense for you and your family, what is the best decision you can make.
One thing that's very important, if you are recipient of what's called the CPP or QPP disability, you have to make sure that you do inform the pension center that you're not entitled to receive the bridge benefit. Because if you are getting paid out what's called the bridge benefit at the same time as receiving the CPP or QPP disability, you could be asked to pay back that bridge benefit. So, it's very important that if you're receiving that, that you let the pension center know so you don't have to get paid back.
Old age security is another thing for retirement planning. This is when you are the age of 65 is the earliest you can start taking old age security and you can also delay this, and you will get more money. Once again, it's a question of how long that you live. There is a lot of benefit to delaying it and this is something that in building your plan we can come up with a strategy of what makes the most sense for you. Old age security is based on being a Canadian resident. The longer Canadian resident that you are, the more money you would get. There is a maximum; to receive the maximum you have to have been a Canadian resident for 40 years after the age of 18. So, in regard to financial advice, we are able to help you with figuring out ways to deduct tax, defer tax, divide tax and tax credits.
So, we can look at your situation and see if there's any opportunities for income splitting with a spouse, RRSPs, spousal RRSPs, TFSAs, RESPs for education, saving for children, pension income splitting. So, there are a lot of options in regard to financial advice that we are able to help you with and take a look at your individual situation.
So, if we revisit the people that we saw before and we see where they are now in their journey, we could see that Lieutenant Colonel Kathy Smith automatically gets a pension. And because of the advice that she had, they have used the spouses RRSP in a tax efficient manner, and they are able to hit all their travel destinations and they don't need to downsize their home because they planned ahead and they knew what they needed to do to get there. MWO John Kim, his business is going very well. He will leave his pension with the CAF; he will defer it until the age of 60. And he's opened up an RRSP with SISIP Financial to help grow his retirement savings and reduce his tax that he's paying on his business income. We have Captain Marie Lee, who plans to work 5 to 10 years with the federal public service. She's going to maximize her retirement savings by doing that. She decided to take the transfer value of her CAF pension and buy back her years of service with the federal public service so that way she can maximize the federal public service pension, and she still has money to pay off her other debts that she has. And PO Sam Anand has the start of an indexed pension. His private sector employer matches his RRSP contributions, and he's got a long career ahead of him. So, he's going to start saving for his first home, invest for his children's education, and he also decides to take his pension transfer value.
So, I'd like to introduce my colleague Keely, who will talk about the insurance.
Hi everyone. Today we're going to talk about the insurance. Insurance is one of the pillars in your financial planning. It is something people buy to protect themselves and their families at a time of loss. You can insure pretty much anything these days. The most commonly things insured is your home and your cars. They are your biggest assets. But when we take a deeper dive into it, you yourself is the biggest asset and that is what life insurance protects. It gives you the financial grace to grieve how you need to allow your family members to do what they need to do at time of grief. We provide life insurance with no exclusions, so dangerous activities and hobbies and war areas are not an exclusion within our policies. We also look at dangerous activities such as motor crossing, scuba diving, hang gliding, jumping out of planes. There are no exclusions with our policies for these activities, so if you are a daredevil and enjoy those activities outside and within your occupation, rest assured that if something goes wrong, it will not be a reason that your insurance payment will be declined.
Here at SISIP, we help members put protection in place for what their needs are. It is tailored to you, for you, by us. As a released member, you have the opportunity to change your OGTI insurance to IRM. IRM is insurance for released members. This must be done within 60 days from your release date. It is important for this to be done for the reason that there is no medical requirements at this time. Don't get me wrong, at the end of the day, those 60 days come by and go, and you forget to do it. We can definitely sit down and take a look at how we can help you. You can increase your coverage, transfer your coverage. The 60 days is not an end all situation, but it is recommended that you do it within those 60 days.
Other than your OGTI insurance, you also have the opportunity to have a term 100. Term 100 is a permanent life insurance policy, and what that means is that you own that policy. A policy is enforced for your entire lifetime. The end date is your passing or if you choose to cancel it at any time, it can't be taken away. It's guaranteed and you have the option to put that in place, so your family always has financial protection. There's never going to be a time where your family won't have access to fast cash, and it's a great opportunity to take a look at what that means when you're releasing. What is that need now? How can we help protect your family for the future?
There is also a beautiful payment protection plan for 20 years. You can pay your policy up within 20 years of premium. That means that if you're releasing from the CAF at 50, your policy is paid up by the time you're 70 and your payments go away, and your life policy is enforced for the rest of your life. It's a really great option to always have the fast cash for the rest of your life.
Protecting yourself with insurance is not just about a death benefit. It's also about what happens when you get sick. Critical illness is a really great way of protecting yourself for that. It's a lump sum payment that pays to you for any additional expenses that you may need. Recover 25 illnesses for adults and those illnesses could be heart attack, stroke, cancer, MS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's disease, loss of speech, loss of existent living. This is a really great product to give yourself some time to heal. When you're diagnosed with a critical illness there's other medical costs that come up, not just things that are covered with OHIP, so we really need to make sure that we have coverage for that, for the future. With our children we cover also with the six children's specific illnesses, which is really fantastic as a parent. Your child becomes Ill. The first thing that we want to do is take a moment with our children and be with them. Make sure that you have the funds that you need to give your child what you need. Travel to Toronto or Montreal for extra medical attention. Where are you going to stay? Months on months on end with hotel rooms. These policies give you a lump sum payout $10,000 where you can help provide that funding to stay in those hotel rooms and not be financially stressed about it.
Critical illness at time of release is super amazing because you have a guaranteed acceptance within 60 days of releasing from the military critical illnesses offered to you in increments of 25,000 or 50,000. It's a guaranteed acceptance which means you don't have to medically qualify, and I can tell you that is amazing. There are no medical questions for you to answer. There are no declines to come down the pipeline. So, you're guaranteed to have that policy in place in case something would happen. You're guaranteed to have financial protection.
Beneficiaries. This is one of the things that we don't regularly, often check in with. When you have a life insurance policy, it's really great to check your beneficiaries. I bet if I asked each and everyone of you today who's your beneficiary on your life policy, you would look shocked and be like “maybe… I think…” check your beneficiaries.
Life changes quickly, things happen, things move on. Beneficiaries are really important to continue to check in with. You can swing by our office, we can do a review, check your policies, it's important. When those policies come to pay, that is not the time that you are there to say no, I didn't want the money to go there, right? So, we need to do that in real time when releasing is a really good time. You can check that off, who are your beneficiaries?
The supplementary death benefit as well. It's a reminder to you when you are releasing to double check what that means. How does that policy work now that you're releasing? At the end, where does it go? How much do you have left? These are really great conversations to be having with your insurance advisor. We want to make sure that when you release, it's not the end all. It's never going to be where we're never going to have a conversation again. But we really want to set you up so that when you release, all the answers are there. You are well prepared financially with all your investment advice, all your insurance advice and you're going to your next stage of life having all those questions answered. A clear picture.
Your financial advisor is like your personal trainer. You either love them or you hate them, but we're hoping you love them because we can really set you up when you're moving on to your next stage. We're convenient, accessible, and we're always there to answer your questions. It's just a matter of clicking your phone open, scanning the QR code and setting up your appointment. Even if you're not sure if you have questions, I can almost guarantee you do. And it's a safe space for you to answer them, get them answered, find out a little bit more.
Thank you very much. And I also want to remind you that with CFMWS, we do also look at hiring released members. And if you want to continue serving and providing for your community, it is a really rewarding way to do that. If you're ever interested again, you can scan the QR code, take a look and see what we're hiring and apply. Someday you'll maybe make another impact on another person's life. It's very rewarding. And finally, again, all of our services are online. So, for all the techies out there that love the online services, the click and ships, this is the great place for you to go. We have tons of resources. They're all made for you. We do this for you to provide you with all the support that you need at your time of release.
I really want to thank you for your time. I really appreciate you listening to me and to the whole team and panel today and presenters, we really look forward to seeing you in our offices or via Teams. I appreciate you and I thank you.
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