A state official has asked Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for a legal opinion on interpreting prepaid funeral contracts, and invited other government and industry entities to weigh in.
“The Department has become aware of instances in which a decedent’s agent requests a method of final disposition of remains that may be interpreted as inconsistent with the method of disposition desired by the decedent,” Texas Department of Banking Commissioner Charles Cooper said in a letter to Paxton May 29. “I am therefore requesting an opinion on the following question: If an executed prepaid funeral contract lacks an affirmative election with respect to a type of disposition, must or may a funeral provider infer the decedent’s election from the contents of a prepaid funeral contract?”
