The Mount Washington Forever Funeral Home has closed, but its cemetery remains unaffected.
The cemetery is now under the management of Charter Funerals, based in Kansas City, after lenders of Mount Washington asked Charter to take over.
Mount Washington is at 614 Brookside Ave.
The funeral home was receiving no money to try and fund pre-need contracts that families had with a company previously managing the home, said Duke Radovich, chief executive officer of Charter.
Pre-need burial and funeral services involve a pre-payment by the customer in exchange for the promise that funeral services will be provided at no further cost when the customer dies.
National Prearranged Services went to different funeral homes, offering to sell prearranged funeral services and to manage the money from the pre-need contracts.
The problem was that National Prearranged Services was sued in federal court for $600 million, alleging the company preyed on consumers and funeral homes to perpetuate a multi-million dollar, nationwide scheme from the sale of pre-need contracts.
The suit looks to recover costs expended by plaintiffs and seven state insurance guaranty companies.
National used life insurance policies to pay for funeral costs stemming from the pre-need contracts. In 2008, National and the insurance companies ran out of money, which left pre-paid services in limbo. Regulators in Texas, where the insurance companies were based, seized control of National. A state-appointed official took over to figure out where the money went.
Some are calling the scheme one of the worst scandals in the history of the funeral business.
Forever Enterprises, also listed in the suit, was the principle financer for National, which also owned Mount Washington, Radovich said.
The Cassity family, of St. Louis, controlled those companies and several others.
“Here, you have a failure of the Cassity insurance companies that backed the pre-need contracts,” Radovich said.
The cemetery will,for the time being, continue as is, Radovich said.
Charter has agreed to offer a credit to people who are holding pre-need contracts with the funeral home that will help offset a “good portion” for an amount of money they paid into their premium plan.
Radovich is still going through all the paperwork to decipher how many people had pre-need burial with Mount Washington.
The families who hold contracts can go to a different funeral home, but the credit won’t transfer.
If you have any questions about this, call the Mount Washington at 816-252-4141.
