By a posting made November 1, the Federal Trade Commission gave formal notice of its intent to revise the Funeral Rule and opened a 60 day comment period. The notice is quite lengthy and signals that that the FTC wants major revisions to the Funeral Rule that go well beyond whether to require the posting
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Missouri Funeral Trust: Is there anything to be learned from Wisconsin?
When the MFT’s previous preneed exam was making news during the summer of 2015, reorganization plans were being filed for the Wisconsin Master Trust and the California Master Trust. As we reported in “Association Master Trusts: De Facto Trustees”, each reorganization plan sought to eliminate the association’s de facto trustee relationship that had…
Missouri Funeral Trust: Just how much is this costing consumers and funeral homes?
When the MFDEA Preneed Portability video disclosed that expense distributions were being paid from the Missouri Funeral Trust to the association, we thought it was appropriate to revisit prior blog posts about the failures of association master trusts in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and California. Those state association master trusts were forced to close, to restructure…
NPS Receivership Wind Down: Does this foreshadow an end to Missouri Third Party Sellers?
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…
Preneed Fraud: What Statute of Limitations?
A former Kentucky funeral director has been charged with multiple felony preneed thefts, some of which occurred 25 years ago. Various news sources report that Donald Creech began pocketing consumer preneed payments as early as 1996. The consumer preneed payments were to have been forwarded to the Kentucky Funeral Directors Association’s master trust. Until he…
Setting the Record Straight: Derailing Missouri Preneed Reform
In this post we are breaking a rule that we have followed since the startup of the blog: maintaining the anonymity of a source. In our post Derailing Missouri Preneed Reform we referred to our source as having an irrefutable reputation within the industry. Those who follow this blog instantly understood that the statement had…
Setting the Record Straight: Preneed Audits will be Delayed Until Further Notice
In an earlier post we reported how the acting director for the Division of Professional Registration advised the Governor that State Board changes were needed to be made “to increase efficiency and fiscal responsibility.” Improvements were needed, “especially with inspections and financial examinations”, and that there could be potential cost savings of $200,000. In a…
NPS’ Anticlimactic Conclusion: the Eighth Circuit Decision
On August 30, 2021, the legal saga of National Prearranged Services came to a rather anticlimactic conclusion. In a relatively short decision, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Richard Webber’s July 2019 judgment that awarded $102,135,393.07 damages against PNC Bank, a successor to the NPS preneed trusts. The final damages award is a…
DIY Funeral Trusts: harder than it seems
Since the onset of Covid, the death care industry has experienced an uptick in preneed sales. As witnessed recently on the Bankrate website, the financial planning industry has taken notice. Bankrate is a website that provides comparisons of various financial products, and recently posted an article titled “The pros and cons of funeral trusts…
Cemetery Preneed Pivot: Do’s and Don’ts for the Prearrangement Contract
In our next post on cemetery preneed, we want to revisit a post from June 2012 (Cemetery Preneed Challenges: bucket accounting). As discussed in that post, the cemetery prearrangement differs from its funeral counterpart because the cemetery can deliver property and merchandise prior to the purchaser’s death. When establishing a preneed program, a…