AI Are vour oroers J always late?

The Merchant Magazine programs, is that this is your opportunity to actually participate in successful cost containment, wellness and safety programs and have the dividends returned to you in cold, hard cash.

At the present time, LMA has group insurance programs for life/health/dental and workers compensation. The plans are administered by volunteers from within our membership who know your needs because they are their needs, too. That's all very nice, you say, but my agent or broker knows what I need, too, and has always had rates right down there with LMA's. In workers compensation, the rates are the same, anyway, so where's this financial "participation? "

In both programs LMA administers, participation can pay dividends. The dividend program on workers compensation insurance is well known. Many of you who are not insured by our carrier,

January 1988

State Fund, or are insured by them on an individual policy, may be receiving annual dividends and feel you're doing about as well as you can. What you may be passing up, however, is the opportunity for a bonus dividend.

We are very pleased with our association with State Fund and proud of our group's dividend record, returning over 2 million premium dollars to our membership in the last five years. But the figure that really sells the program is the $109,000 and change in bonuses.

The "dividend" program you may not be familiar with is the one more or less built into our health insurance plan. The recent spate of rate increases left us all wondering how good a job we were doing in administering our association program until we compared our recent 10.50/o increase to those ranging from l5400/o imposed by the better known names in the healthcare field. There are several factors involved in building a rate for health insurance coverage, but it basically boils down to: Claims * Retention : Premium.

Claims are a factor that we don't have a lot of control over beyond efforts in wellness programs, playing with deductibles and hoping for the best, but an association program like LMA's can affect retention. Retention can include a lot of things, including tax, various administrative fees for billing, payment of claims, building claim reserves and. of course. profit.

By no means is profit a dirty word, but that is where an association program can have an impacl on your insurance costs. We are, admittedly, part of that retention number in that we charge an administration fee, but because we have those volunteer administrators on our insurance trust committee who don't have to be paid a commission, and the association doesn't have a group of stockholders who require a return on their investment, we can keep costs lower. At times, this may not be reflected in our rates, because we have to "protect" the plan by charging premiums high enough to cover costs, but our plan, and those of many other associations, contain another feature that can give us an advantage. lf we have excess premium after all costs are paid it's not just some broker, agent or insurance company's lucky day (again!); we are able to accumulate it as a reserve and eventually return it to participants or eliminate or minimize further rate increases. In the past five years our insurance trust committee, your peers, have declared premium holidaysa given period of time when no premium billing was madeworth $220,842 to participants in our plan. It represented 2-l12 months when no premium was due.

Lumber

Handi-cut/ Home Ctr. Brds. Half Pak PT.L. and PW.

WE SPECIALIZE IN PRE-STAINING "YOUR MATERIAL" IN ALL OLYMPIC COLORS, COATING ALL 4 SIDES OF EXTERIOR SIDING AND DIMENSIONALTRIM, PLUS ,1 COAT APPLICATION ON ALL SIZES OF PLYWOOD, ENCLOSED WAREHOUSE FACILIry

FRED CARUSO executive secretary

Il'lffS Enterprises, Albuquerque, I \N.M., received the award for having the most "Outstanding Safety Program" among building material companies in our five states area.

Company president Bob Kitts accepted the award at a ceremony in Denver recently. The award is sponsored bytheassociation in conjunction with the Lumbermen's Underwritine Alliance.

Kitts Enterprises was chosen for the award because of their low turnover of employees, incentive program, drivers safety program and top management involvement in safety. A wholesale distributor of hardwoods, softwoods, cabinet and furniture hardware, custom mouldings and paneling, the company employs 46 people.

The safety award is presented annually to promote attention to the practice of safety in lumber and building material operations.

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"You weigh 23,000 pounds. you're intelligent, neat and make friends easily."

The Merchant Magazlne

MEREEN.JOHNSON Straight line Multi-Rip Saws & Select Rip Saws

Mgrs. To Buy Wickes Lumber

Wickes Cos., Santa Monica, Ca., has agreed to sell its lumber unit to the division's management for an undisclosed price.

Founded in1952 and the oldest of Wickes' current divisions, the lumber operations included 241 retail outlets with 1986 sales of $1.02 billion.

Proceeds from the sale are assumed to go towards Wickes' $2 billion debt or to fund expansions in other divisions.

Tax Off On Ganadian Lumber

Canada and the U.S. have agreed to cancel the 15% levy on Canadian softwood lumber exports to the U.S. from British Columbia, the largest timber producing province.

This agreement covers almost '7 5o/o of the Canadian softwood exports and includes lumber from the four maritime provinces, Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia. These provinces had been practically exempt from the tax all along.

The action came as a result of British Columbia raising its stumpage fees and requiring lumber companies to assume the full cost of replanting, thus fulfilling provisions in the original pact for the tax to be replaced by other measures.

At press time discussion was continuing on retaining or eliminating the lumber export tax for Quebec, the second largest softwood producer. It was not immediately clear what effect the change would have on lumber prices.

Davidson Opens New Plant

Davidson P.W.P. celebrated its 50th year anniversary and the opening of a new, 395,000 square foot Chino. Ca.. location in an event hosted by founder Norman Davidson, Jr.

It was built to accommodate the company's growth and the consolidation of the corporate oflice with manufacturing operations, Davidson and two long-time associates, Dr. Gary Demerest and Dennis Morgan, arrived in a horse-drawn stagecoach, provided for the occasion by Wells Fargo Bank. Davidson, who founded the company in 1937, began the dedication with introduc- tory remarks followed by a celebration shared with customers, suppliers, employees and long-time associates and friends.

Bohemia Builds New Plant

Production of laminated timber products will be increased by 500/o when Bohemia Inc. completes construction of a $4.7 million manufacturing facility at Vaughn, Or., this summer.

Herb McKillop, general manager, laminated products manufacturing, says that 55 employees will be hired. In addition an adjacent dry kiln and planing mill operation will employ 35 to dry and surface lumber for the operation. Jim Walsh will add two new sales people to his on-site sale force. Stock beams and headers as well as custom beams will be produced at the new plant for U.S. and Pacific Rim customers. Bohemia's laminated products plant at Saginaw, Or., will continue to operate at full capacity as it has done since 1971. Their sales of stock and custom-ordered laminated beams, glulam headers and purlins amounted to more than $21 million as of April, 1987.

Custonl M illirtQ Spacialists

Higgins Welcomes New Staff

Topping-off a two-day managers' meeting held in the Walnut Creek, Ca.. Ramada Renaissance Hotel, J.E. Higgins Lumber Co. hosted an open house at their new corporate headquarters oflices in nearby Concord, Ca.

Managers of the new J.E. Higgins operations, located at facilities formerly occupied by Sand PlYwood in Los Angeles, Escondido, and San Bernardino, Ca., were welcomed bY

The Merchant Magazine

other Higgins managers and corporate staff and met key Professional contacts from legal, financial, and other outside service companies attending the Oct. 9 affair.

Higgins Lumber operates l2 distribution divisions plus Golden State Flooring Co., serving California and Nevada markets.

Stanline Earns Maior Ranking

Stanline Inc., Norwalk, Ca., is among the "200 Best Small Companies in America," as listed in a recent issue of Forbes.

The only building material wholesaler on the list, Stanline ranked No. 49 among companies reporting annual revenues of less than $315 million.

Firms were numbered primarily on a five-year average return on equity. With $59.7 million in sales in 1986. Stanline achieved a 25.40/o average return on equity.

Ex-Lumber Train Reborn

The old Camino/Placerville/Lake Tahoe. Ca., diesel train of MichiganCalifornia Lumber Co., Camino, Ca., has been granted a second life as a luxury wining/dining vehicle.

Rechristened the Wine Train, the refurbished engine will haul daily trains through the famed NaPa Valley with stops at wineries for "a unique wine and food experience on wheels."

Whonnock Changes lts Name

Whonnock Industries Limited, Vancouver, 8.C., is now known as International Forest Products Limited.

In announcing the change, William L. Sauder, chairman, pointed out that the Whonnock Lumber Division will be known as the Pioneer Lumber Division. The Whonnock Shake & Shingle division will adopt the name Classic Shake & Shingle. Products from the Whonnock Custom Cedar Products division will be designated as International Forest Products Custom Cuts. The McDonald Cedar Products division will become McDonald Cedar. The Silvertree-division will retain its name. The name change is believed to have been made to better reflect the full role of the company in a global economy.

In the U.S., International Forest Products, Inc., based in Chino. Ca.. has no problem with the Canadian firm's similar name. Phil Butterfield, president of the Southern California wholesaler and remanufacturer, noted that "they're a supplier of ours and will continue in that role. As they have no U.S. offices and as a manufacturer aren't competitive with us, we think it will be an asset for us." Butterfield also noted that his firm had been compensated by the Canadian company.

Doug Fir No. 1 In West

Douglas fir continued to be the Number One species in the West in 1986, representing 470/o of all lumber manufactured in the area, according to the Western Wood Products Association.

The 9.67 billion feet of Douglas fir and Douglas firllarch produced was 18.4% more than in 1985. Of the total, 67.20/o was dimension, 12.90/o studs, and 10.30/o timbers.

Total production for all species in the West was up l5o/o in 1986.

The second-largest produced wood was Ponderosa pine, up 9.30/o in 1986 to 4.02 billion feet. About 38.40lo of Ponderosa pine production was in commons, with 36.60lo as shop and 76.40/o as dimension lumber.

Hem-fir was third, climbing 17.60/o in 1986 to 3.91 billion feet. For hem-fir lumber, 70.50/o was dimension and 17.30/o studs.