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 to return consumer funds held in escrow for orphan NPS contracts.  Orphan NPS contracts were those that did not have a related Lincoln Memorial life insurance policy.  Without a LML policy, or the indicia of the intent to purchase a policy, the various insurance guaran ..read more

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 the last parent’s death, the right of sepulcher passes to the children.  The children must enter into an at-need arrangement with the funeral home.  But rather than use the preneed contract’s guaranteed prices ..read more

A funeral director recently remarked to me that she referred her families to the internet when they inquired about power of attorney forms.  Yes, free (or cheap) power of attorney forms are plentiful on the internet.  In reality, there are too many POA forms for a family to choose from, and the odds are that they will select one that does not meet their needs or comply with their home state requirements.  Each state has its own POA law, and those laws differ in some significant ways.  If a family does not specify their home state in the Google search, the results will pull ..read more

I saved this NYT article for a rainy day.  Finding Out Your Power of Attorney Is Powerless describes situations where families had a financial institution reject a power of attorney subsequent to the principal becoming incapacitated with dementia or Alzheimer’s.   My family had a similar experience recently when my mother-in-law had to be admitted to a rehab facility after a nasty fall.  The reality is that financial institutions and hospitals prepare power of attorney forms that build in extra protections for themselves.  If a person has a health care power of attorne ..read more

In the new era of Zoom meetings, the Federal Trade Commission is holding a “public workshop” on September 7th to get further input on Funeral Rule changes that would require funeral homes to post their price lists on line.   The workshop will be televised, and interested parties can watch by using this hyperlink.   Several months ago, the FTC published notice about the workshop and invited industry members and consumer advocates to participate as panelists.  This hyperlink will take readers to the workshop agenda that lists the panelists and the topics to be addressed ..read more

A recent Guardian article offers excellent advice to caregivers for individuals with dementia.  The author, Cynthia Dearborn, shared her experiences about caring for a father with vascular dementia.  Cynthia described how her father’s short-term memory became severely impaired, along with his judgment and reasoning skills.  I am having a similar experience with a Transition Plans’ client, who for the purposes of this post I will refer to as Mary.  I first met Mary thirty years ago when I prepared her first set of estate planning documents.  We kept in contact over the ..read more

We find the AgingCare website to be a good source information for end of life planning.  The website includes a forum for readers to post questions and offer their experiences.  However, readers need to be careful when the forum is used to seek legal help on end of life issues.  One such topic thread began with a simple question about whether an elder law attorney is needed for a living will.   The first answer started with the appropriate advice, but then went way off course: Consult an elder lawyer. A living will may not be required if you have a trust (to avoid all ..read more

One of the weaknesses of Chapter 436, Missouri’s preneed law, is that it provides the State Board few enforcement powers beyond disciplining the preneed seller’s license.  There are plenty of examples of preneed sellers obstructing the State Board’s efforts to obtain preneed records.  At least one resorted to litigation as a delay tactic.  The prospect of having their license put on probation has not been much of a deterrent to some sellers.  Sellers were prepared to play a waiting game with the State Board for a settlement agreement offering a few years of probation.  ..read more

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 fee was created for the sole purpose of funding the State Board’s preneed examination functions.  The fee amount was set by regulation and the State Board initially set the fee at $36.  There were some who thought that NPS had killed off preneed and sales wo ..read more

With our next few posts we will dive deeper into SB32, the Missouri preneed legislation intended to provide the State Board a new audit direction and some new enforcement tools.  Our first issue will be the change in course on preneed audits.  The bill would amend section 436.470 by adding the following new section: 3.  The board’s financial examination guidelines shall include processes and procedures for determining adequacy of funding of sellers’ preneed obligations, compliance of seller’s handling of consumer funds with this chapter, and compliance of trustees’ administratio ..read more