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Ten years after the collapse of NPS, the Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors has a confidence problem with licensees and legislators.  Licensees see a regulator that is obsessed with DBAs, renewal reports, and exams that focus on contract provisions.  Legislators see a regulator that will not fulfill the SB1 mandate to protect…

The Special Deputy Receiver over National Prearranged Services recently filed an application to assign a significant portion of the NPS preneed contracts to Liberty Bankers Life Insurance, and a subsidiary, Capitol Life Insurance Company.  If approved by the court, the NPS contracts will transfer on November 1st.  Preneed contracts sold in Missouri and…

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…

The Special Deputy Receiver for National Prearranged Services recently filed a Bill of Costs with the Federal trial court.  The Bill of Costs seeks to recover copy charges of more than $500,000 from a former NPS trustee.  Those costs do not include attorneys’ fees.  Litigation can be very costly.

Missouri’s preneed regulators are keenly aware…

When NPS first collapsed, the estimate of the company’s liabilities to funeral homes was reported to have been as much as a billion dollars.  When the SDR finally brought the case to trial, the damages awarded by the jury were less than half of the original estimate.   While this author believes the actual damages are…

Final arguments were heard in the NPS civil trial this past Friday.  With the SDR having presented evidence through the prior Friday, the defendant trustees presented their case in less than a week.  This may reflect that the NPS trustees had viewed their duties as having been defined by Chapter 436 as relatively low.  As…

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the OCC) supervises the fiduciary activities of national chartered banks, and in February, updated the guidelines used by its examiners.  The “Personal Fiduciary Activities” booklet includes a section on pre-acceptance due diligence that fiduciaries should conduct before agreeing to serve as trustee for an account.  …