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
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Missouri Seller Exams: Trustee Recordkeeping and Disbursements
By Bill Stalter on
The clock is on for the second round of Missouri preneed audits financial examinations, and the Missouri Division of Professional Registration wants to avoid the slow start that plagued the process 5 years ago. Although the State Board has yet to approve the Division’s proposals for seller recordkeeping and the scope of the exams, exam…
Missouri Preneed Seller Records: Receipt Journal
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Compliance, Recordkeeping
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…
A Missouri Mid-Semester Cram: the March agenda
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Compliance, Recordkeeping
The staff for the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors posted the 779 page agenda for next week’s meetings. Doesn’t the state have a policy against the waste of natural resources? Granted the agenda includes minutes and regulation proposals from several prior meetings, but a Cliff’s Notes would be helpful to know what’s…
Missouri Preneed Seller Records: Trying to Get Everyone on a Similar Page
By Bill Stalter on
As reported in several prior posts, the preneed examination process in Missouri has been a work in progress for the past five years. Funeral homes in that state have been selling preneed for more than 30 years without much oversight or recordkeeping guidelines. When the law was re-written in 2009 in response to the NPS…
FTC’s Active Supervision Guidelines: A Regulatory Board Exercising Adjudicatory Powers
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Preneed
In its Active Supervision Guidelines, the Federal Trade Commission staff discusses how regulatory boards frequently act in an adjudicatory capacity by seeking to impose discipline on a licensee or by seeking to enjoin an unlicensed individual. While such actions may have an anti-competitive effect, those actions will not necessarily expose the board members to…
Missouri’s Second Round of Exams: The Committee’s Role
By Bill Stalter on
In September we posted about a regulation proposal that sought to define the role of a sub-committee of the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors (Missouri’s Financial Examination Committee: What Role?). While the Board eventually gave its staff instructions to revise that proposal, the regulation has yet to resurface. Instead, the…
Missouri Preneed Examinations: Round 2
By Bill Stalter on
When the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors meet on January 6th, the main topic of discussion will be the scope of the next round of preneed financial examinations. With the passage of Senate Bill No. 1 in 2009, the State Board was given the responsibility of conducting a preneed examination…
New Missouri Preneed Recordkeeping Requirements: base records and uniformity
By Bill Stalter on
The Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors will meet December 9th, and their agenda includes a proposed regulation for new preneed recordkeeping requirements. Borrowing perhaps from other states’ preneed audit manuals, the regulation sets out a list of journals, ledgers, documents that a preneed seller would be required to maintain. For an…
The Missouri Fund Manager: What was Grandfathered?
By Bill Stalter on
There seems to be some confusion in Missouri over the permissible contractual relationships among the preneed seller, the preneed trustee and the independent investment advisor. Prior to the collapse of NPS, and the subsequent amendment of Missouri’s preneed law, Chapter 436 allowed the preneed seller to incorporate provisions in its preneed trust agreement to instruct…