The Missouri State Board of Embalmer and Funeral Directors met this past December to discuss changes to the Preneed Examination Handbook, and former Board Chairman Don Lakin made a proposal that has merit.

The State Board has licensed approximately 315 preneed sellers.  The current preneed examination procedures contemplate an onsite visit to each seller.  Many of those sellers are small funeral homes that sell less than a handful of preneed contracts in a month.  Mr. Lakin has suggested to the State Board that the examination process could be made more efficient if travel to smaller funeral homes could be eliminated.  This could be done by the State Board giving a reporting option to funeral homes that sell 35 or less preneed contracts during the annual reporting period.  Such funeral homes would be defined as a “small seller”, and in lieu of an on-site examination, a small seller would fax copies of preneed contracts as they are sold and  periodic funding agent reports to the Board.  The examiner could review the small seller documents once each year from their desk to ensure contracts are in compliance and consumer funds are timely deposited with the funding agent.  Using a desk top review of smaller sellers would probably save the Board time and expense spent traveling to dozens of funeral homes.