Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
A Los Angeles Times story about Jerrigrace Lyons, California’s ‘death midwife’, generated ten days of entertaining barbs and counter-barbs on an SCI chat board. The article describes how Ms. Lyons assists families that choose home funerals in lieu of a funeral home.
One of the posts challenges a fellow funeral director for the…
Funeral homes and cemeteries are businesses that serve families when they are most vulnerable. To guard against exploitation, the death care industry establishes standards of professionalism, and state governments pass laws and regulations. Consumer advocacy plays an important role in educating consumers about these standards, and providing families tools in evaluating death care operators. To…
So why is it so tough to provide preneed portability? Because the transaction has been defined by state law as a contract between a consumer and a death care company, and federal regulators tend to agree. When the issue has arisen in the context of federal preemption, the interests of the state regulator have prevailed…
With two reform bills (HB 2469 and HB 2594) already introduced into the legislature, and two substitute proposals in the works, Missouri legislators and regulators are committed to fixing a law that allowed NPS to exploit consumers and funeral homes. However, consumers and the death care industry are both having difficulty analyzing the specifics of…
The preneed bill that angered the Funeral Consumers Alliance in February continues to advance within the Tennessee legislature. SB 2705/HB 2763 has been placed on the calendar for the Commerce Committee for April 1st. If passed, the legislation may well make Tennessee the first state to lower its preneed trusting requirement. Despite the need for…
It must be spring: preneed reform bills are sprouting like crocus.
The direction taken by the Maryland and Tennessee legislatures in proposing protection funds drew recent criticism from the Funeral Consumers Alliance. While consumer advocates have some valid points regarding these legislative efforts, the obstacles facing states are far more complex than what most…
Death Care trade publications such as the Funeral Service Insider and the FuneralWire advocate that funeral homes revisit the non-guaranteed preneed contract. I agree that funeral homes should reconsider the non-guaranteed preneed contract, but for reasons different from those expressed by other authors.
The non-guaranteed preneed contract affords flexibility and portability to the individual who wants to do more…
The Clayton Smart debacle has been, and will continue to be, the subject of articles calling for preneed reform. A recent AARP article titled R.I.P. Off will be one of the more controversial (leading to frequent citations by consumer advocates). While the article is biased and should be rebuked by the death care industry for its various…