Preneed

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With this post we will examine the new “Preneed Audit Fund” that SB32 proposes to create.  Missouri funeral homes are already quite familiar with the state contract fee that was authorized in 2009 by Senate Bill No. 1.  Per that law, the State Board began charging a fee on each preneed contract sold.  That contract…

It would seem that the Missouri Legislature has grown impatient with the funeral industry’s efforts to regulate preneed.  New legislation, Senate Bill No. 32, would establish a two tier approach to preneed oversight.  This law would create a threshold whereby the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors would be required to notify the…

In an earlier post we reported how the acting director for the Division of Professional Registration advised the Governor that State Board changes were needed to be made “to increase efficiency and fiscal responsibility.”  Improvements were needed, “especially with inspections and financial examinations”, and that there could be potential cost savings of $200,000.  In a…

This past August we received an email from the Gottcha Board asking about availability to attend a closed meeting call.  Anticipating a client was in trouble, we responded that we would accommodate the Board’s request.  However, the Board’s purpose for the call was to make an inquiry about representation to resolve the dispute with the…

On August 30, 2021, the legal saga of National Prearranged Services came to a rather anticlimactic conclusion.  In a relatively short decision, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Richard Webber’s July 2019 judgment that awarded $102,135,393.07 damages against PNC Bank, a successor to the NPS preneed trusts.  The final damages award is a…

For years, Illinois law has prohibited funeral homes from being named as beneficiaries to consumers’ life insurance policies.  In response to frauds committed by National Prearranged Services (NPS), many states amended their preneed laws to prohibit life insurance ownership by a funeral home.  NPS had structured its preneed program as owner of insurance policies sold…

In our next post on cemetery preneed, we want to revisit a post from June 2012 (Cemetery Preneed Challenges: bucket accounting).  As discussed in that post, the cemetery prearrangement differs from its funeral counterpart because the cemetery can deliver property and merchandise prior to the purchaser’s death.  When establishing a preneed program, a…

While preserving traditional burials should be a cemetery’s top preneed priority, a priority should also be placed on the surviving lot owner that is opting for cremation.  The Wirthlin studies that we’ve been referencing in prior posts suggest that most grave spaces sold by cemeteries during the past 20 years will never be used.  One…