Preneed

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With this post we are returning to the misstatements made by the Missouri Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association in their May video explaining preneed portability.  At minute 10:18 of the MFDEA video, the association attorney advises that Chapter 436 only allows transfer of preneed contracts to funeral homes licensed by the Missouri State Board.  Employing…

Late in 2021, PNC Bank threw in the towel.  After years of litigation and two appeals, PNC Bank agreed to a settlement with the NPS special deputy receiver.  Last month, our Illinois clients began receiving POC notices from the SDR that a portion of their claims for inflation would be honored.  Payment of funeral home…

For years, Illinois law has prohibited funeral homes from being named as beneficiaries to consumers’ life insurance policies.  In response to frauds committed by National Prearranged Services (NPS), many states amended their preneed laws to prohibit life insurance ownership by a funeral home.  NPS had structured its preneed program as owner of insurance policies sold…

The risk of COVID to family members is causing some preneed contract holders to rethink the traditional funeral they have purchased.  During the early stages of the coronavirus spread, a handful of funerals were found to have been super spreader events.  Dozens of attendees were infected, and several deaths resulted.  Funeral homes have since implemented…

The New York Times article on funeral planning blurs the line between pre-paying and pre-funding.   The savings accounts discussed by the article are one method of pre-funding funeral costs.   But the POD savings account is far less secure than final expense trusts or final expense insurance policies.  The concern many consumers have is that the…

Earlier this year, the New York Times ran a story that on funeral planning that raised several valid issues and recommendations.  We will use the next few blog posts to explore certain issues and recommendations in greater detail.   With this post we will start with the article’s discussion of prepaying for a preneed contract, and…

In a prior post, we used Allan Sloan’s article on the Treasury bond market to discuss the impact on preneed insurers and their funeral home clients.  The Treasury market has forced preneed insurers to lower their policy returns, which has a direct impact on the profitability of funeral homes.  To make insurance funding more profitable…

In our last post, we used Allan Sloan’s article on the Treasury bond market to highlight the investment exposures to death care trusts.  Today we will look at how the Treasury market is also impacting funeral homes that rely upon insurance for preneed funding.  Mr. Sloan’s article alluded to insurance companies being required by statute…