Federal Judge John Jones III has teed off (again) on the Pennsylvania Board of Funeral Directors. Awarding attorneys fees of more than a million dollars and issuing a permanent injunction against the State Board, Judge Jones rebuked Board members for their failure to show initiative towards a legislative fix to a Truman era problem. And
Funeral
Cemeteries: the insurance void
For obvious reasons, life insurance is the preneed funding choice for many funeral directors. One hundred percent trusting laws give proactive preneed organizations no choice but to use insurance funding. Insurance provides the commissions needed to finance marketing and a sales force, and, maybe as important, relieves the funeral home from preneed accounting and administration.
Pennsylvania: knocking down fences
Heritage is the term that the death care industry uses to describe the relationship each funeral home or cemetery attempts to forge with the community through years of service. Heritage reflects a commitment to the community, and through that commitment, the operator can expect the community’s business.
Initially, the vast majority of funeral directors fought…
What to Build: Fences or Bridges?
Every funeral home and cemetery feels the pain of this economy, but that pain runs deeper for Missouri and Illinois funeral directors. Per capita, Missouri funeral homes bore the greater brunt of the NPS collapse. In the same year NPS collapsed, the IFDA master trust was forced to divest its key man insurance policies and…
The death care operator’s contributions to the cremation trend: immediate payment
To provide a prospective of the cost on one’s final arrangements, consumer groups advise the public that the cost of a funeral could be the third most expensive purchase made during their lifetime (behind the purchases of a house and a car). In doing so, the consumer group often sites the average funeral cost figures…
Missouri’s desk audit: the first look will take the longest
As discussed in prior posts, the Missouri preneed audit process begins with a notice to the preneed seller for the production of documents and data. After a review is made of the documents, data and the annual reports filed with the State Board, an on-site examination is scheduled with the seller. Most Missouri preneed sellers…
Missouri’s Document Production Request
The examination of a Missouri preneed seller begins with a request that certain documents be submitted to the State Board within 3 weeks. The purpose for the document production is to allow the examiner to perform a desk audit of the seller’s operable documents before an on-site visit is made. From those documents the examiner…
Informing the Consumer (and the Industry)
The need for better preneed oversight is obvious, but regulators often lack resources and expertise. The state of Connecticut made headlines recently for the decision to make budget cuts by de-regulating the death care industry*. Connecticut funeral directors challenged the decision, and the state issued a ‘clarification’ and withdrew the plan. (That’s correct, the…
Foreclosed: preneed funds
The economy has preneed regulators concerned about depository accounts used for preneed funding. A story reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution underscores the reason for this worry. When a funeral home fails, consumers have little chance of defending the depository account from creditors’ claims. Insurance and trusts offer the consumer better protection when the creditors come knocking.
Recession and Preneed
The “R” word is back again. We’re only three years removed from the housing bubble burst, but a sense of normalcy seemed to be returning to the death care industry. It wasn’t necessarily a return to the old ways, not with the increase in cremations and regulations. But, many operators were coming to grips with…