Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
The purpose for a record keeping rule is to inform licensees what reports and documents that they must either maintain, or create, to enable the preneed examiner to determine compliance with state law requirements. But, the opening paragraph of the proposal given the Missouri State Board puts the cart in front of the horse:
A…
It’s been fifteen months and counting, but the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Directors and their Division staff are still at odds over a rule for defining minimum record keeping requirements for preneed sellers. The Division staff first floated an “Adequate Records” rule in July 2015, but the draft was not formally submitted to…
The Missouri Iron County Mountain Echo ran the following story on August 15th:
A former Ironton Funeral Home Director has pleaded guilty to two counts of stealing in Iron County Circuit Court. The charges stem from the sale of pre-need funeral plans. George Treaster of Ironton entered a plea of guilty to two…
When the State Board first discussed the seller records proposal in December 2015, the disbursements records drew complaints from industry members that the examination process was delving too deeply into how funeral homes were conducting their business. Some comments were directed at whether examiners would review statements of goods and services to determine if consumers…
In our prior post (Missouri Seller Exams: Timely Deposits), we discussed the receipt and deposit records that funeral homes may be required to maintain. However, to demonstrate that they are complying with the preneed law’s deposit requirements, funeral homes will also be dependent upon the records generated by their funding source to confirm…
Missouri’s preneed funeral law imposes time requirements on funeral homes that accept consumer funds. For funeral homes using depository accounts to fund preneed contracts, the funeral home must deposit consumer funds with the bank within 10 days. Funeral homes using insurance to fund preneed contracts must remit the consumers funds to the insurance company within…
In our January 3rd Post, we described the process (or lack of process) between the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors and the Division staff for establishing the examination procedures that would be applied to preneed sellers for the next five years. The industry railed at the Staff’s recommendations for the scope…
The clock is on for the second round of Missouri preneed audits financial examinations, and the Missouri Division of Professional Registration wants to avoid the slow start that plagued the process 5 years ago. Although the State Board has yet to approve the Division’s proposals for seller recordkeeping and the scope of the exams, exam…
At its March meetings, the State Board again received from the Division staff a rule proposal that would define the minimum records that a preneed seller would have to maintain. The first recordkeeping proposal was offered last July, but was never discussed. The recordkeeping proposal was subsequently included on the December agenda, but was only…
As reported in several prior posts, the preneed examination process in Missouri has been a work in progress for the past five years. Funeral homes in that state have been selling preneed for more than 30 years without much oversight or recordkeeping guidelines. When the law was re-written in 2009 in response to the NPS…