Preneed

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We recently found this post on funeral matters explaining the authorities of executors, guardians and power of attorney agents to control funeral arrangements.  The post is limiting its advice to New Jersey laws, but a casual reader could lose sight of that limitation.  With regard to executors, the post suggests that an executor will be…

After almost 16 years, the NPS receivership is coming to a close.  But the final chapter will mark a messy end for funeral homes that have consumers with an orphaned NPS contract and those funeral homes that did not heed the SDR’s 2020 notice about lost earnings. 

One of the receivership’s final steps will be…

The traditional funeral and burial remains the preference of many individuals.  Understanding that this type of arrangement will be more expensive, many of those individuals purchase a preneed contract to spare their survivors a financial burden.  But what happens when a child does not respect their parent’s preference for a traditional funeral and burial?  Upon…

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…