Funeral Consumers Alliance

I am a co-owner along with my husband of a small funeral firm in Texas. We purchased the Company from my in-laws in April of this year. And shortly after we signed on the "dotted line" we learned of the horrific financial state of NPS. My husband and I have worked at our small family owned funeral home for 15 years and my husband sold NPS pre-need contracts for 7 years. Our NPS rep came in one day and presented this product to my husband, and after reviewing the information she gave him he decided to begin selling for NPS along with the other pre-need company he was currently selling for. We have 14 unpaid claims to date and are in the process of working with the receivership entity in getting these claims funded. We certainly do not expect to ever get any growth on these contracts which my husband sold in good faith; believing that he was selling a solid product to his customer. However, I am a bit angry about the lack of empathy for people like us who sold these contracts and will incur great losses throughout our future years in business. If we cannot keep our doors open, so to speak, what happens to those consumers who purchased these contracts? Another funeral home has no legal obligation to accept the NPS contracts we sold in house here at our funeral home, and quite frankly; why in the world would they? My husband's approach to selling pre-need contracts was never aggressive (such as sending mail outs or hiring someone to go door to door); he simply sold contracts to consumers who walked into our office or called wanting to purchase a pre-paid funeral contract. Surprisingly, he has sold many over the years. Not just NPS, however he has sold enough NPS contracts to cause us incredible current financial strain as well as future financial strain. I am, of course, extremely sorry for those consumers who purchased these contracts. However, at this point, our 14 families with NPS claims received the funeral they paid for without any problems. We, on the other hand, are still waiting for these claims to be funded. The funds we are waiting for regarding these claims (just the face value of the policies) is approximately $84,000.00. Did I mention we just purchased this company in April and are a somewhat small funeral firm? ENOUGH SAID.