We came across the Dioceses of Liverpool website some time ago when researching the income tax consequences of church sponsored preneed programs. We had found that preneed funeral programs in England, Canada and Australia were often established and operated independent of the funeral home. With a high cremation rate, English churches saw an opportunity to
Green Gardens: an option for the city cemetery?
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Cemeteries
In its past two newsletters, my local chapter of the Funeral Consumer Alliance has reported on the difficulties in finding cemeteries that permit natural burials. In the Spring newsletter, the FCA of Greater KC reported on how the Catholic Cemeteries of Northeast Kansas was reconsidering natural burials at one of its six cemeteries. In…
Meet Me in St.Louis: the Death Care Regulators Convention
By Bill Stalter on
Missouri’s death care regulators will play host to their peers next week when the North American Death Care Regulators Association convention is held in St. Louis. When you host a convention in NPS’ backyard, the agenda needs to include sessions on what went wrong. The final session of the agenda will catch every …
Wisconsin Cemeteries: Who needs a fiduciary?
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Cemeteries
Here is proof that readership of newspapers is going down.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called a few weeks back about a Wisconsin legislative bill that sought investment freedom for cemetery trust funds. With the legislative battle that was waged a year ago in Wisconsin, we had expected the bill might represent a renewed …
Dark Clouds and Preneed
By Bill Stalter on
Not that close, even from the 30,000-foot view.
That’s our assessment of the Morningstar analysis of preneed and its impact on the death care industry. In “Dark Clouds for the Death-Care Industry”, a stock analyst attempted to explain the preneed transaction, and then provide an assessment of the impact of preneed on the profitability of…
Dark Clouds and Unfavorable Secular Trends
By Bill Stalter on
A few months ago, a stock analyst issued a critique warning against investment in the industry’s public companies. A few weeks later, the critique got a second wind when chat pages and social media forums picked up on the critique’s conclusion, and circulated the article as proof that certain trends will ‘haunt’ all funeral homes…
Will there be an Exhibitor’s hall?
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Reform
Conventions and seminars provide trade associations and trade journals important sources of revenue. Accordingly, the death care industry has plenty of ‘retreat opportunities’ to choose from. However, there will be a death care convention held in Montgomery Alabama this weekend that will be off limits to funeral directors, cemeterians and their legions of industry vendors.
Death care …
Annual Investment Reviews: the need to diversify
By Bill Stalter on
The ICCFA’s November Magazine included an article by Craig Martin that provides good advice for all death care trusts. Death care trusts are notoriously bad performers, and if operators are to improve investment performance they need to work more closely with their fiduciaries and portfolio managers. Mr. Martin offers 5 tips that are equally applicable…