Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
Keeping true to a campaign promise, one of the first acts of Missouri Governor Eric Greitens was to issue an executive order that gives each state agency until June 30, 2018 to repeal or cease any regulation that is ineffective, unnecessary of unduly burdensome. The Governor’s order sets out the following review procedures:
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The next section of the Missouri preneed records rule provides the funeral home latitude to maintain records in either a hard paper copy or an electronic format, but so long as the records are provided to the State Board in a timely manner:
All records required to be maintained by a seller may be maintained…
We anticipate that the following section of the Missouri record keeping proposal is directed at the situation where consumers assign an existing insurance policy to the funeral home:
All information obtained or possessed by the seller related to any insurance policy used to fund any preneed contract that may include, but not be limited to…
The next section of the Missouri preneed seller records rule would require funeral homes to retain copies of the periodic statements provided by banks, trustees and insurance companies:
Copies of account statements for joint accounts, trust statements for trust accounts, and any statements received from insurance companies listing the insurance policies in effect and/or the…
The next section of Missouri record keeping proposal addresses funeral homes that handle insurance premium payments. For funeral homes that rely upon insurance funding for their preneed program, the initial payment is typically handled by the funeral director or preneed agent, and then subsequent premium payments are made directly to the insurance company. However, some…
In our continuing review of the Missouri Seller Record Keeping proposal, the rule next addresses what a preneed seller must retain with regard to its consumer contracts. However, the proposal actually contains two sections requiring the retention of contracts and agreements (Section 2.A and Section 2.F). Of the two, Section 2.F is the more detailed:…
The purpose for a record keeping rule is to inform licensees what reports and documents that they must either maintain, or create, to enable the preneed examiner to determine compliance with state law requirements. But, the opening paragraph of the proposal given the Missouri State Board puts the cart in front of the horse:
A…
It’s been fifteen months and counting, but the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Directors and their Division staff are still at odds over a rule for defining minimum record keeping requirements for preneed sellers. The Division staff first floated an “Adequate Records” rule in July 2015, but the draft was not formally submitted to…
In our January 3rd Post, we described the process (or lack of process) between the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors and the Division staff for establishing the examination procedures that would be applied to preneed sellers for the next five years. The industry railed at the Staff’s recommendations for the scope…
The first record described in the proposed Missouri recordkeeping regulation could actually require preneed sellers to maintain three, maybe four, sets of journals:
(1) receipt and disbursement journals containing a record of deposits to and withdrawals from both preneed trusts and preneed joint accounts, specifically identifying the date, source, and description of each item deposited…