Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
While the Wall Street bail out plan has many flaws, one of its proposals has wide-based support: the concept of increasing the limit on insured deposits to $250,000. According to the New York Times, the driving force behind this proposal wasn’t the mega-banks, but rather our local banks.
The Independent Community Bankers of America represents approximately 8,000 local…
Why did you agree to that?
That’s the question I have been getting to the Chapter 436 Working Group recommendations regarding i) the deposit of all purchaser payments to trust, and ii) some form of periodic statement to the consumer. One answer would be that we see too many news reports like this…
Concurrent with the hearing held on her Liquidation Plan, the Special Deputy Receiver posted a financial report to the Lincoln Memorial Life/NPS website. As with most financial statements, explanatory notes at the end of the report provide some insights to the failed NPS empire. While prior documents have disclosed that the companies have a deficient of…
While the completion of the document may have felt like a birthing process to the staff of Missouri’s Division of Professional Registration, the Chapter 436 Working Group Recommendations more accurately reflects an industry position paper that has yet to be completed. Faced with a deadline imposed by the Missouri legislature, the Division ‘finalized’ the Recommendations in an…
In response to a proposal that preneed trustees be required to provide periodic account statements to contract purchasers, a funeral director asked what liability he would have to consumers who question the trust’s performance during a year such as 2008. Legally speaking: none. But ultimately, death care companies should be accountable to their families for the decisions…
Before the guaranteed preneed contract, funeral directors accepted pre-payment on funeral arrangements as an accommodation to their families. Funds were typically placed in a joint account or POD account at the local bank. As this practice became more common, “preneed’ laws were passed to establish requirements regarding the deposit and withdraw of funds. These laws were fairly simple…
On June 11th, Senator Delbert Scott met with a number of death care industry members and regulators to begin mapping out the direction for preneed reform in Missouri. From that meeting, it was decided that the state’s death care regulators would form review committees that would facilitate a dialog on the issues, and…
As news of the NPS meltdown began to leak last month, several proposals to reform Missouri’s preneed law were hastily drafted. Not knowing the extent of NPS’ problems, some reform advocates felt the need to strike while the iron was hot.
Even as the legislative session ended on May 16th, it was not clear whether…
The Missouri preneed industry faces a long and stormy summer.
The Missouri legislature seems to be listening to regulators’ requests for much needed authorities for examinations, audits and rulemaking. A draft bill providing emergency powers to the Division of Professional Registration has emerged as legislation that may be signed into law before the current session ends…
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…