Survey of State Regulators - Regulation of Sales of Pre-Need Funeral Plans
(GAO-03-831SP)

U.S. General Accounting Office

Introduction

Welcome to the Survey of State Regulators of Pre-Need Funeral Plans. Please note: You may need to use the scroll bar on the right hand side of the screen to read all of the information on a page. At the request of Christopher Dodd of the Senate Subcommittee on Children and Families, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions and Representative Mark Foley of Florida, the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) is reviewing federal and state regulation of the funeral (death care) industry. We have developed the following survey instrument to gather information on how your state (1) regulates the death care industry; (2) enforces its rules, regulations, and laws; and (3) provides consumer protections. Because the structure used by the states to regulate the death care industry varies, we have developed survey instruments for each of the separate death care industry segments we are reviewing-- funeral homes, cemeteries, crematories, third-party sellers, and sales of pre-need funeral plans. You have received this survey because you have been identified as the proper point of contact within your state for addressing questions related to regulation of sales of pre-need funeral plans. Please note: For purposes of this survey, the term "pre-need funeral plans" refers to the purchase of funeral goods and services to be provided at a later date when death occurs. It does not refer to the purchase of an insurance policy that will pay the costs for funeral goods and services upon death. Because we are collecting comparable information from all 50 states, we encourage you to respond to this survey so that we can have an accurate and complete accounting of the regulatory framework and enforcement mechanisms that are in place for addressing the death care industry in all 50 states. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.

Instructions - Navigating, Exiting, and Printing the Survey

To complete your survey, you may move from screen to screen using either - - the buttons at the bottom of each screen - - the menu bar on the left side of the screen, or - - the arrow buttons on the navigation bar at the bottom of the screen. You can exit the survey at any time by clicking on the "Exit" button at the bottom of the screen (or on the navigation bar). You may log in again later to re-open your survey and then continue to enter new responses or to change previous responses. The survey will restart at the last response you entered. You can answer open-ended questions by clicking anywhere inside the box and begin typing. When you reach the limit of the open space, keep typing and the box will automatically expand. You can print your responses for each section by clicking on the "Print this page" button at the end of the section. You cannot print the entire survey at one time. This would be a good section to print and keep near you each time you log on. When you have completed the survey, please mark the last question in the last section as "Completed." Your answers will not be used unless you have done this.

Contacts

If you have any questions or are experiencing difficulties responding to the questionnaire, please contact: During the survey, respondents were given the e-mail and telephone number of two staff. If you need to be reminded about these persons during later parts of this survey, please click on the "?" button at the bottom of the screen. That will reveal these two persons each with an email hot link. Clicking on the hot link will in most cases automatically open up your email system and have the proper email in the "To:" address. Then you only need to fill in your question and send the message.

General Information

	Please enter the following information in the event we need to clarify a response. Name of state:

	Contact information of respondent: Name:

	Title:

	Name of office/agency:

	E-mail address:

	Telephone number:

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