Funeral professionals are used to having to choose between what works best for their business and what’s available on the market. Preneed insurance provider Physicians Mutual is disrupting the market with a new product offering to provide funeral home owners with highly customized optionality to better fit the needs of their…
Read MoreBy Thomas A. Parmalee When you get a chance to make three to four times the typical rate of return compared with a traditional investment, you take a good look at it. At least, that’s what you do if you’re Steve Shaffer, president, CEO and board chair at Homesteaders Life…
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By Thomas A. Parmalee Chris Rose, founder and president of Cairn Partners, wants to make one thing clear: He does not run a preneed marketing company. “We work in the death-care profession and work with independent, family-owned funeral homes and cemeteries to help them defend, grow and protect market share,”…
Read MoreBy Thomas A. Parmalee Matthew Van Drimmelen was a civil engineer working in the government sector. It was the type of stable job most people spend years trying to get – and when they get it, they hunker down and stay put. But he realized pretty quickly that he was…
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The newest edition of Homesteaders’ Preneed Motivators report is now available to download. Since 2006, Homesteaders has gathered data from Homesteaders’ policy owners to uncover key information about what motivates them to prearrange. It’s all part of the company’s continuing effort to help funeral home owners make more informed decisions and…
Read MoreBy Jon O’Hara, CEO at Great Lakes Family of Companies Some exciting news for preneed in the state of Michigan: Our determination, focus and strategy worked in changing one of the most critical pieces of legislation in decades for funeral professionals. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently signed State Senate Bill…
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For over two decades National Guardian Life Insurance Company has been offering continuous insurance coverage and peace of mind for the residents of Michigan. When other preneed insurance carriers stopped selling preneed insurance in Michigan due to the highest Consumer Price Index rates in over 30 years, making providing preneed…
Read MoreDean Lambert spent almost 25 years as a marketing executive with Homesteaders Life Company, where he rubbed elbows with some of the most respected titans of the preneed insurance profession, including Graham Cook, Steve Lang, Steve Shaffer, Danny Lodermeier and many others. But about eight months ago, he retired a…
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Preneed marketing and senior executives involved in or interested in preneed are encouraged to attend a one-of-a-kind networking and educational meeting hosted by National Guardian Life Insurance Company from Nov. 15-Nov. 16 in Madison, Wisconsin. The 2023 LIC Preneed Forum includes meeting sessions from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on…
Read MoreBy Thomas A. Parmalee If you haven’t noticed that there has been someone new at the helm of National Guardian Life Insurance Company for the past four months, you can be forgiven. That’s because it’s a familiar face: Kimberly A. Shaul has been at the company for almost 10 years,…
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By Thomas A. Parmalee When you get good enough at something, that’s usually an invitation for being asked to move out of your wheelhouse. And that’s what happened at The Outlook Group, which was founded by Charles Anderson and became one of the most effective preneed marketing firms in the…
Read MoreFuneral Directors Life is excited to announce improvements to its preneed app, “FDL Mobile,” available in the Apple Store for iOS devices and on Google Play for Android devices. Improvements include an updated design, upgraded security measures, built-in scanner functionality and more. “We’ve listened to the needs of our customers to introduce major upgrades…
Read MoreBy Thomas A. Parmalee You might think a fifth-generation funeral director like Joseph Thomas, the general manager of advance planning at Shackelford Funeral Directors in Tennessee, would have grown up knowing he’d always enter funeral service. But you’d be wrong. In fact, as an adolescent, Thomas knew that was exactly…
Read MoreSome of the nation’s leading funeral homes and advance funeral planners from across the country were recently honored by Precoa for their performance over the past year, according to a news release. Precoa’s advance funeral planners represent the highest concentration of Million Dollar Producers in the funeral profession, including several…
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