March 1999
The Director - Features
Preneed and Your Future
Seven tips to energize your preneed program
Selling future business is foreign to many funeral directors who for generations relied on the inevitability of death to bring business through the front door. With today¹s ever-increasingly competitive market, these funeral directors must change their practices in order to secure their business. This means creating a strong preneed program.
Preneed and Your Future—Seven tips to energize your preneed program, written by Philip C. Pauzé, covers seven areas funeral directors can enhance their preneed program—business philosophy, accounting, stature, method of funding, trust retainage, trust earnings and trust taxation. The article also includes three charts demonstrating the growth funeral directors can expect from a preneed contract with an initial value of $5,000.
Pauzé is president of Pauzé Swanson Capital Management Co., an investment management firm and president and trustee of the Pauzé Funds, a mutual-fund company. Both firms are located in Houston, TX. His firm is the investment advisor to 12 master trusts and hundreds of funeral homes nationwide.
