William Stalter is the founder of Stalter Legal Services and the Preneed Resource Company. Bill focuses his law practice on preneed and death care compliance, serving banks, funeral homes, crematories, and cemeteries. He has written multiple published articles
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Final Expense Trust,Preneed,PreplanningThe 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… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Final Expense Trust,Preneed,PreplanningThis section of the New York Time’s funeral planning article attempts to address two separate issues. The issue of what happens when the consumer moves away is one of portability and whether the preneed contract can be transferred to a new funeral home. As we discussed in our first post on the Times article, certain… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Prepaid Funeral Contract,Preplanning,Transition DocumentsWe’re back to that recent New York Times article about funeral planning. The reporter offers spot on advice about the ‘gaps’ of preneed arrangements. A surviving parent will frequently advise adult children that they need not worry about his (or her) funeral because they have purchased a preneed contract. As the article suggests, adult children… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Preplanning,Right of Sepulcher,Transition DocumentsFuneral 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… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Churches/Ritual,Consumer Advocates,PreplanningNPR’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… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Churches/RitualThe 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… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Consumer Advocates,PreplanningThe take away from the recent NPR stories on the funeral industry is that consumers should preplan their funerals to control costs, and if the objective is to compare funeral homes and their prices then plan to visit each prospective funeral home. The first story reports on a widow who spent more than $7,000 on… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Churches/RitualWe came across the Dioceses of Liverpool website some time ago when researching the income tax consequences of church sponsored preneed programs. We had found that preneed funeral programs in England, Canada and Australia were often established and operated independent of the funeral home. With a high cremation rate, English churches saw an opportunity to… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Non-guaranteed,Preneed,Preplanning,UncategorizedOne message that can be taken from the FAMIC’s Talk of a Lifetime campaign is that funeral directors need to re-think their prearrangement procedures. Perhaps too much emphasis has been given to preneed, and not enough to the planning process. Prearrangement marketing and procedures have often been crafted by the funeral home’s preneed funding agent. … Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Guaranteed,Non-guaranteed,Preneed,Preneed Development,Preplanning,UncategorizedThe Memorial Business Journal recently reported on findings from the NFDA’s 2014 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Study. Some of the findings may not come as much of a surprise to funeral directors, such as consumer demands are changing. But, findings regarding how many respondents have made efforts to prearrange, and prepay, for funerals were surprising. … Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Non-guaranteed,Preplanning,Price Protection,Total Return Trust,Trust Funded,UncategorizedSince President Obama unveiled the new MyRA as his plan to revive Americans’ saving habits, we have been making comparisons between funding for retirements and preneed. Like the MyRA, the non-guaranteed preneed contract could represent more of an introduction to preplanning funding than the final preneed product. As the AARP acknowledged a few years ago,… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Non-guaranteed,Preplanning,UncategorizedOur recent post on similarities of the MyRA and non-guaranteed preneed concluded with references to how criticisms of President Obama’s new retirement account were applicable to preneed. One such criticism relates to the lack of investment performance, but we will save that issue for a future date. For this post we want to address the… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Funeral,PreplanningMany funeral homes have an informal practice of accepting small insurance policies from individuals who want to know their funeral expense will be taken care of at the time of death. Often, the individual may not be comfortable discussing their funeral preferences with family, and trust the funeral director to apply the insurance proceeds appropriately.… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Missouri - SB1,Preneed,PreplanningMore than one funeral director has expressed the opinion that the State Board should never have been given rule making authority. We’ll never know, but if the State Board had rulemaking authority 22 years ago, it could have implemented rules to help enforce NPS’ 1990 settlement agreement, and thereby avoided that company’s collapse. But equally… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cremation,Guaranteed,Insurance Funded,Preneed,Preplanning,Price Protection,Price ProtectionOur preneed provides peace of mind by freeing your family from the burdens of rising funeral costs and from making difficult decisions during their time of grief. Since the inception of the transaction sixty years ago, that statement has defined preneed marketing. Even the AARP recently embrace the peace of mind concept. The inflationary protection… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,Consumer Advocates,Preneed,PreplanningThe funeral industry may grumble about the FTC’s Funeral Rule, but two disclosures required by that law play important roles in the preneed transaction. The general price list is often used by funeral homes as a tool for comparing prices with the competition. And when a prearranged funeral is performed, the statement of goods and services… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Funeral,Guaranteed,Insurance Funded,Non-guaranteed,Preneed,PreplanningThe “R” word is back again. We’re only three years removed from the housing bubble burst, but a sense of normalcy seemed to be returning to the death care industry. It wasn’t necessarily a return to the old ways, not with the increase in cremations and regulations. But, many operators were coming to grips with… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Preneed,PreplanningThe Wall Street Journal has long been viewed as a leading source of business and investment news. But last weekend, the WSJ ran a short article on preneed, and demonstrated its lack of understanding of the transaction. The article attempts to characterize preneed as an investment, and then explores issues such as cash surrender charges,… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in IFDA,Preneed,PreplanningA recent news report titled “Broken Trust” served to fan the emotions of Illinois residents who purchased a preneed contract from the Illinois Funeral Directors Association. The facts involve a 103 year old lady who purchased the contract 16 years ago, and experienced a 32% drop in the contract’s value in one year. The news… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Preneed,PreplanningA “Spend Down” is the transaction where a person seeking public assistance transfers money or insurance to a funeral home to avoid having the “asset” count as a resource. It is a commonly held perception that the Spend Down accounts for many preneed contract purchases. But should all Spend Downs trigger the state preneed law… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Missouri - SB1,Preneed,Preplanning,ReformLike most states’ preneed laws, Missouri’s Chapter 436 has always contemplated a depository accounts for the small funeral operator who provides preneed as an accommodation. Many funeral homes do not sell enough preneed to warrant the expense and hassle of either a trust or an insurance license. Chapter 436 allows the funeral director to place… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Missouri - SB1,Preplanning,ReformTaxpayers, through their local governments, have always borne some of the cost of death care. Taxes go toward the maintenance of abandoned cemeteries and the final disposition of the indigent. But as the New York Times reports, the economy is causing more families to abandon the care of their dead to local governments. While many… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Preneed,Preplanning,Price ProtectionThe funeral director’s decision about how to fund his preneed is influenced by the state’s trusting requirement, investment returns, administrative convenience and the volume of preneed business. Essentially, there are three methods of funding preneed: the depository account, the master trust and the insurance policy. The funeral director’s use of the depository account predates all… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Preneed,Preplanning,ReformRegulators and preneed sellers squared off recently over the subject of who owns the preneed trust fund: the funeral home or the consumer. Hearings to reform Missouri’s preneed law hit a wall when the issues of trusting requirements, income accrual and portability was taken up by a review committee comprised of regulators, industry representatives and consumers. In a debate that… Continue Reading
