Yes, GuideStone offers automatic bill payment and you may enroll at any time.  The Automated Clearing House (ACH) option allows automatic bill payment when you authorize money to be transferred from your or your employer’s checking or savings account each month.

Is ACH a trustworthy way to pay my bills?
Used by more than 95% of all financial institutions in the United States, ACH is a trusted means of authorizing electronic payment of bills.

What is the benefit of paying my bills with ACH?
Because ACH is an electronic transaction, you don’t need to write and mail a check for your monthly payment, so ACH can save you both time and money. Payments are deducted on the 5th of each month, beginning the month after ACH billing is set up, so payments are never late.

How do I enroll in ACH?

1. Complete the authorization form and return it to GuideStone.
2. Once your financial institution is prepared to process ACH transactions on your account, GuideStone will notify you by mail of the date of the first transmission.

My church pays my bills. Do I still need to sign up?
The party responsible for bill payment is the one who should authorize ACH. In other words, if your employer remits the payment, your employer would decide if ACH is a good option for the ministry. If you personally send in payment for a GuideStone bill, you may sign up for ACH yourself.

All the employees at a given employer who have insurance with GuideStone are listed on one itemized bill.  Bills are sent to the employer's billing address monthly.  GuideStone bills one month in advance for insurance.  For example, an employer will receive a bill for February coverage at the beginning of January. 

Because of the advance payment policy, several months of charges for a new insurance enrollee may appear on your first bill for that individual. For example, the billing for a new employee could happen as follows:

• Jan. 10: You receive your regular advance bill for February coverage (for all your existing employees).
• Feb. 9: You receive your regular advance bill for March coverage (for all your existing employees).
• Feb. 11: A new employee has been approved for coverage with GuideStone.
• Mar. 11: You receive your regular advance bill for April coverage, which includes charges for your new employee's February, March and April. 

Payments arriving after the 1st of the month may not be reflected on the following month’s bill. Retirement contributions and insurance payments cannot be combined.

Life, medical and disability plans require evidence of insurability and will be effective on the date of approval by GuideStone's underwriters. This process can take up to eight weeks, while required information is collected and reviewed.

Dental, accidental death and dismemberment and/or personal accident coverage are effective the day the application is received by GuideStone, regardless of underwriting requirements for life, medical and disability coverage. 

Employee eligibility
In order to apply for GuideStone’s life and health products, employees must be considered “eligible.”  An “eligible employee” is:

• A paid employee of a church, agency or institution affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (or other organization currently participating with GuideStone); and
• Working 20 or more hours per week.

Employees of multiple SBC employers will still be eligible if the hours worked per week with the multiple employers total 20 or more.

Students at participating Southern Baptist seminaries are also eligible for certain life and health products.

To maintain eligibility, employees must continue to meet the above requirements. Failure to do so could render an employee ineligible for GuideStone’s life and health products.

Dependent eligibility
An employee must have coverage in order for a dependent to also be covered on a GuideStone plan. Eligible dependents include:

• The employee's spouse.
• Unmarried children under age 25 who are dependent on the employee for support and maintenance.
• An unmarried child (over age 25) who is covered under the employee and is incapacitated. (Review Plan Booklets for more information on incapacitated children).

Children are not required to maintain student status in order to remain eligible for GuideStone coverage.

We have built pages with links and resources to help our employer administrators manage benefits for employees on GuideStone insurance plans:

Personal Plans Employers

Group Plans Employers