Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
Dear Senator Schatz,
We appreciate that your Senate Appointment Committee has a packed hearing date for April 20th. So, the Missouri funeral industry not represented by the Missouri Funeral Directors and Embalmers Association requests a single question be asked of Ms. Solon:
If confirmed as executive director of the Division of Professional Registration…
When an Association Press story broke a few months ago, the MFDEA response was to suggest that the reporter had been influenced by individuals who were anti-Governor Parson and anti-Division. But the reality is that funeral directors opposed to Ms. Solon’s actions are supporters of Governor Parson. Multiple parties reached out to the Governor to…
MFDEA members like one past president have written to the Governor to commend the Division acting director for having put an end to the State Board’s “photographic surveillance” of funeral homes. This past president of MFDEA stated that instead of actually inspecting the funeral home, the Board inspectors were taking pictures which were then reviewed…
Despite what some may say, the State Board shake up and the termination of its executive director came as a surprise. But the most surprising move by the Division was the termination of Randall Jennings, the preneed examination supervisor. The examination supervisor had no role whatsoever in the funeral home inspection process. Baffled by that…
As suggested in our prior Cemetery Preneed Exemption post, Missouri’s endowed care cemetery law (Chapter 214.270 et seq) has a huge flaw when it comes to religious cemeteries: they are either all in or all out. Religious cemeteries often have good cause for seeking exemption from state endowed care laws. Our religious cemetery clients…
The Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors recently promulgated a rule (20 CSR 2120-3.560) to exempt certain cemetery operators from preneed licensing with the State Board. The rule was a long time coming. We first wrote about preneed licensing confusion for Missouri cemeteries back in 2009 (Lost in the translation:…
We had hoped that the Trial Court’s Finding of Facts would shed some light on how a Missouri preneed trust holding life insurance would have income to distribute. Despite being invested primarily in life insurance policies, Allegiant Bank made monthly income distributions to NPS. The Trial Court made several findings on how Allegiant Bank failed…
In our last post we discussed the need for the Missouri State Board to provide guidance to their financial examiners regarding Section 436.425 and insurance funded contract forms. In this post we will discuss Section 436.425 and trust or joint account funded contracts.
Subparagraph 9 has created confusion for examiners and sellers. That section states…
At its April meeting, the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors discussed the formation of a “Phase 3 Committee” that would provide input for the revision of the Board financial examination handbook. The Board staff is about half way through the second round of preneed examinations (“Phase 2”), and the Board wants to…
Our next criticism of Missouri’s pending Exam Handbook is its violation of the Four Corners Rule, which requires a document to stand on its own when being interpreted and applied. Common law precludes parties from going to outside sources when applying the document to different situations. While the Handbook gives lip service to the Four…