Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
Recent problems in Illinois and Kansas have prompted funeral directors, and funeral regulators, to recommend that more regulation should be required of cemeteries, including licensing. What’s good for us is good for you.
When the Illinois Comptroller assured the public that the state was acting promptly to revoke Burr Oak’s license, many distraught families could…
What transpired over the years at Burr Oak Cemetery is an atrocity. Hundreds of grave spaces have been desecrated, causing extreme emotional distress to all families having a loved one buried at the cemetery.
The demand for action has been intense, and Illinois politicians have responded with legislative proposals to improve oversight of cemeteries.
NPS’ sister corporation, Forever Illinois, used the Illinois self trusting provisions to administer preneed funds. As with funeral operators, Senate Bill 1682 will force Illinois cemeteries to seek corporate fiduciaries to administer their preneed and endowed care funds.
John Penton has a valid point.
Funeral homes and cemeteries compete for the vault sale. And, the price of a grave space will impact what a family will pay for a traditional funeral and burial. So, when a cemetery faces economic challenges that impact the maintenance of graves, should competing funeral directors be allowed to…
Rules and regulations provide an important framework for the operation and maintenance of a cemetery. However, cemeteries should retain the flexibility to revise their rules to adapt to changes in operations, business and customs. It’s difficult to understand why a cemetery would risk complaints and the prospect of losing business by rigidly adhering to a set…
Like homeowner’s covenants, ownership of an interment right in a burial space comes subject to the cemetery’s published rules. Cemetery rules are used to regulate such issues as the planting of trees and shrubs, establishing uniform requirements for markers, the removal of decorations, and a transfer of the interment right. Consequently, it’s common for states…
When Missouri’s Chapter 436/NPS reform legislation began to take shape last summer, the state’s cemetery industry sought to get out of the train’s way by incorporating new preneed provisions into a Chapter 214 bill. To clarify that cemeteries could establish preneed programs that would be regulated exclusively under Chapter 214, and not Chapter 436, statutory…
The Missouri Legislature has reform of Chapter 436, the preneed funeral law, on the fast track. With the speed that Senate Bill 1 has been amended and perfected, it may be more appropriate to label this reform as being in the express lane. However, Missouri legislators must not lose track of the cemetery industry’s efforts…
The Federal Reserve’s December 17th decision to cut its interest rate to less than a quarter of a percent is meant to encourage investors back into the stock market. But for many cemeteries, the prospect of depressed interest rates will have dire consequences to endowed/perpetual care trusts that are subject to state laws which limit…
Even when the need for reform is apparent to all, the legislative process can take years. With the Michigan Senate having approved a House substitute, that state’s cemeteries are a step closer to reform that could have avoided Clayton Smart’s pillaging of $70 million dollars of endowed care funds.