A Missouri funeral director recently called for advice. He received a first call for an individual that died without a spouse or children. The deceased had a surviving parent and several siblings, but a distant relative was asserting the right of sepulcher by virtue of a durable power of attorney. The funeral director had reviewed
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NFDA Consumer Survey: An Uptick in Facebook Traffic and Consumer Planning
By Bill Stalter
The Memorial Business Journal (the NFDA’s weekly newsletter) has been drilling down into the NFDA’s 2024 Consumer Awareness and Preferences Survey. With the FTC’s Funeral Rule amendment looming, the July 4th MBJ edition was of particular interest to us. The Survey found that 92% of the survey respondents use Facebook, with most of those respondents…
Confusion over Who Controls the Funeral: Stale Advice
By Bill Stalter
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…
Mom’s Dementia and the empty house: Using the power of attorney to move on
By Bill Stalter
One of the most difficult challenges for a financial POA agent is the parent’s empty house. Dementia has robbed the parent of the life skills needed to continue living at home and the health care POA agent has already made the decision to move Mom to an assisted living facility. As time passes, it becomes…
The Final Chapter of NPS: a Messy Ending
By Bill Stalter
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…
Avoiding Downgrades: Coupling the Preneed Contract with a Power of Attorney
By Bill Stalter
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…
Mining the Internet for a Power of Attorney form: Is a Free Form Better than Nothing?
By Bill Stalter
Free power of attorney forms may not provide what the client needs.…
Power of Attorney: It isn’t Necessarily Powerless
By Bill Stalter
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…
FTC Workshop: The Funeral Rule and Price List Disclosures
By Bill Stalter
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…
Transition Plans and the Client with Dementia: Caregiver Challenges
By Bill Stalter
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’…