Protecting clients who’ve purchased pre-needs written at your location is imperative: not only may the products and services selected change and become unavailable when the pre-need matures, but staff may not know what was included in a pre-need written more than ten years prior.

  The casket is a common pre-need item that may change from the time the pre-need was written to the time it matures. For example, the casket company can drop the unit or discontinue it from particular distribution centers.

  While some manufacturers will transfer a unit that was dropped from one particular distribution center when available, the option doesn’t exist if the unit was discontinued. If it was discontinued, employees will need appropriate information to identify the casket and find another of the same quality. The current employee will not likely know the gauge/species, type of finish and interior of the casket if only the name is listed.

  To add to the issue, many firms are purchasing caskets made in other countries due to their lower purchasing cost. Matured pre-needs may call for a casket that is on backorder from a foreign supplier. The question becomes whether a firm will need to replace that back-ordered unit with a similar but domestically-sourced casket that costs twice as much.

  Similarly, providing urns on a pre-need may become a problem. With cremation rates at more than 50 percent nationwide, urns have become a major part of merchandising. Hundreds of firms distribute urns of all shapes and sizes to other firms in the death care industry.

  If a pre-need specifies a “bronze cube” urn, an employee will not know whether the specified urn should be made from sheet, plate or cast bronze. But the wholesale cost could be significantly more depending on how the urn is made. And the customer should receive what they paid for.

  Yet another challenge with pre-needs is the arranger working with the client when the pre-need matures. That person should know what products have been replaced, as well as what products are comparable when a selected one is no longer available.

  Regarding services with pre-needs, many firms have developed packages including different services and merchandise. And over time, firms have modified the packages to better represent what the consumer is selecting. However, the name of the package does not necessarily change when the content included changes.

  Thus, when a package is selected, a copy of the package contents should be included in the pre-need file to ensure the consumer receives what they purchased. This likewise protects the firm from providing more than what was purchased when packages are upgraded over the years.

  To protect both the firm and consumer, the following information should be included in all pre-needs regardless of whether a firm is selling, caskets, urns, vaults, markers, etc.:

•     Manufacturer of the product

•     Product name or manufacturer identification

•     Type of interior

•     Gauge or species and type of finish

•     Copy of package in each pre-need

  Documenting the following information with the pre-need reduces the chance a non-comparable product is substituted when the originally-selected product is no longer available.