Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
Fall is the time when many cemeteries host their most effective marketing program: voices from the past.
In conjunction with a local community theater, the cemetery will research their “residents” for interesting characters to portray. The community theater actors will then bring those characters to life during a tour of the cemetery. These tours generate…
The newest edition of the Missouri Preneed Exam Handbook has some significant problems. The one we will discuss today is ambiguous instructions regarding the review of preneed contracts. Paragraph 13 of the Handbook’s scope of financial examination states:
13) Staff shall look at 100% of all active preneed contracts that have been sold since the…
The Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors introduced a new preneed examination handbook at its October meeting. (Click the following hyperlink to access the preneed handbook.) The proposed handbook would change the emphasis of the preneed exams from contract and recordkeeping compliance to tracking consumer funds paid to the funeral home.
For…
Our first recommendation to the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors is that they assume, and maintain, control over the preneed examination procedures. The exam procedures implemented two years ago were never submitted to the Board for review and approval. Accordingly, the examination procedures handbook should remind the staff that any change made…
It only took 15 months, but the Missouri State Board finally approved a rule to clarify what fees a preneed seller may charge when offering a guaranteed price contract to consumers. Low investment returns from insurance and trusts forced many funeral homes to stop offering guaranteed price contracts to consumers. Funeral homes’ cost increases were…
At its April 25th meeting, the Missouri State Board unwound two controversial staff proposals: mandatory consumer disclosures for preneed contracts and the formation of an insurance funded contract. With 20 CSR 2120-3.205 , the Board staff sought to require Missouri preneed sellers to provide consumers with a two page list of disclosures. Those disclosures…
Pursuant to a notice that may, or may not, satisfy state law, the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors met in closed session this morning. At the State Board’s December meeting, Division counsel advised that 24 hours’ notice to the public was required to amend the Board’s agenda. Notice of this 9:00…
With its January 9th and 10th agenda, the Missouri State Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers exhibited yet another example of memory loss. Just weeks prior, the State Board voted to have one or more special meetings on seller records and the financial examination process. The motion approved by the Board was to have…
The last time the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors took up the issue of preneed seller record keeping requirements, the staff proposal emphasized a contract ledger approach. The proposal sought to require a contract record that reflected the amount and date of each payment received and the corresponding dates and amounts…
In their last meeting, the members of the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors took a small, but important pivot in the preneed examination process. The State Board approved a recommendation made by the Financial Examination Committee that the Committee review each examination report and prepare the letter that accompanies the report to…