I visited Baltimore and attended the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) convention earlier this month. In earlier blog posts I’ve told you some overriding impressions that I had from that experience. . . and I told you I would be bringing you, in greater detail, some of my thoughts and observations. One of the phenomena that I see trending is what is termed as the “Death Positive” movement. I think the Death Positive philosophy has been around for over a […]
When you look to the past of funeral home marketing it is pretty accurate to say that many funeral homes “Got their names out there” and then waited for deaths to happen. When I started in the business, our industry was as far from “Pre-Emptive” marketing as any industry. . . it’s just the way it worked. We didn’t want to wish bad things on to our future clients. It just did not feel right to say, “When you die, […]
We learned late last week in this press release that Funeral Directors Life Insurance Company (FDLIC) of Abilene, Texas, acquired the American Life and Annuity Company (ALAC) of Hot Springs, Arkansas. According to the press release “effective immediately, FDLIC will work to support existing ALAC policyholders and Arkansas funeral homes”. Again, according to the press release, “President and CEO of FDLIC Kris Seale and ALAC President Claude Holloway worked closely together to ensure a smooth transition process for both companies, […]
Service Corporation International (SCI) has agreed to provide up to $209 million in refunds to settle a federal class-action lawsuit alleging it deceived 87,000 Florida customers who purchased its prepaid plans according to this article from last week from Yahoo News. According to the article SCI Direct (formerly called Neptune Society Management Corporation) was named as co-defendant in the class-action suit originally filed by West Palm Beach senior Nancy Taylor in April 2020 in U.S. District Court in Fort Lauderdale. […]
This recent article was published by Financial Content in Australia about the low-cost preneed market and made the comment, “This rise and popularity of ‘low cost’ prepaid funerals have taken the death care industry by surprise. With household budgets increasingly coming under strain from rising inflation, cost considerations are likely to come even more to the fore over the coming year. . . .It doesn’t matter how bad or risky the fundamentals are: Consumers have fallen in love with the […]
Earlier in August, partly through this press release, Aflac announced that they will be entering the “Final Expense” insurance market and made a point of detailing a strategy aiming consumer directed products at the Senior insurance market. Not only will Aflac offer a Final Expense product but they will also be rolling out a Medicare supplement product. Here’s what Aflac Deputy U.S. President Virgil Miller says of the product roll-out, “This product expansion represents not only new offerings, but a […]
This recent public relations press release indicating that a shift in attitudes of people in Great Britain about how people want to “Say Goodbye” to their loved ones makes one wonder if that shift will find its way across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States. One report found that “sales of direct cremation plans – a straightforward and affordable alternative to traditional funerals where the deceased is collected, cared for, and then cremated without a service or mourners present […]
This article from the Insurance News Net informs readers that preneed insurance company National Guardian Life (NGL), based in Madison, Wisconsin, has sold its interest in Settlers Life Insurance Company to Everly Holdings, LLC. The sale consists of approximately 225,000 policies that are geographically disbursed throughout the United States. Those policies included in the agreement include final expense and single annuity products. According to Knut Olson, President and CEO of NGL, this move strengthens NGL’s ability in the Preneed funeral […]
Your funeral home has lots of options when it comes to the issue of Preneed. For instance, in most states you have the choice of funding via Trust or Master Trust bank accounts or funding with life insurance vehicles. You also have the decision as to if you are going to guarantee the sale of the funeral or memorial services with preneed selected services for the pre-funded amount or use the pre-funded amount as a “bag of cash” to be […]
I’ve mentioned before that things change in Death Care. . . . but they seem to change rather slowly and methodical. We’ve seen a slow 40 year march to cremation being the most popular method of human disposition. And we’ve seen a movement over the last century from home funerals, to funeral homes, to church funerals to what we now see as “Event Center” funerals or memorials. As a business person who owned a funeral home I was cognizant of […]
