Preneed: A Pandora's Box of Problems
Two consumer groups recently issued failing grades to funeral regulators from 33 states. Taking the position that state funeral regulators have a duty to serve both professionals and consumers, The Funeral Consumer Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America worked together in evaluating each regulator’s website on the following criteria:
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While COVID-19 reminds the most vulnerable of our population of the need for funeral planning, safety concerns may preclude following advice given by both the Death Care industry and the Federal Trade Commission: visit multiple funeral homes and request their general price lists. The FTC mandated ‘general price list’ provides an itemized description of the…
The newest edition of the Missouri Preneed Exam Handbook has some significant problems. The one we will discuss today is ambiguous instructions regarding the review of preneed contracts. Paragraph 13 of the Handbook’s scope of financial examination states:
13) Staff shall look at 100% of all active preneed contracts that have been sold since the…
The New York Times article on funeral planning blurs the line between pre-paying and pre-funding. The savings accounts discussed by the article are one method of pre-funding funeral costs. But the POD savings account is far less secure than final expense trusts or final expense insurance policies. The concern many consumers have is that the…
To begin reform of its preneed exam process, the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors is seeking input from the industry by this Friday, June 8th. Specifically, the State Board is requesting comments to the Exam Procedures Handbook prepared by its staff. We have made edits to that handbook, and will…
With the Dead Beat’s permission, we are sharing at a column they ran earlier this summer. An anonymous contributor suggested that Death Care associations are headed for obsolescence. The author noted that attendance at Midwest conventions have dropped dramatically, and attributed this in part to a failure to adapt meetings and conventions to the…
For consumers who need installments to pay for their preneed arrangement, funeral directors report that the $100 monthly payment is the comfort threshold for most individuals. For a widow planning her own funeral, the $100 monthly payment will require an installment term of six years or longer. If the widow needs to also cover an…
Funeral and burial preplanning should be a part of every estate plan, but some web pages promoting estate planning can be misleading or impractical. The estate planning page sponsored by Lawyers.com suggests that funeral arrangement preferences can be incorporated into a will or health care power of attorney to alleviate the financial and emotional burdens…
NPR’s second story on the funeral industry suggests that preplanning a funeral will typically require visits to multiple funeral homes.
NPR led their story with a consumer attorney sharing his frustrations with getting price information from funeral homes near his father. To the attorney’s surprise, many of the funeral homes did not include general price…
The promotional website for the Ecclesiastical Preneed Funeral Plan could easily be mistaken for that of a funeral home. This church stresses to parishioners the need to not only plan their funeral, but to also make financial provisions for their eventual funeral expense. The website points out that funeral costs are rising, and funding a…