Enrolled Bill Summary

            Senate Bill 314 amends the Finance Code to continue the office of banking commissioner until September 1, 2013, and to include across-the-board sunset provisions. The bill authorizes the commissioner to place a permit holder whose permit is suspended on probation, to require the permit holder to report regularly to the department, and to limit its activities as prescribed by the commissioner. The bill also requires a sales contract for prepaid funeral benefits to be written in plain language and easily readable, and it requires the Finance Commission of Texas to establish a standard disclosure to be included in such contracts regarding the goods and services to be provided or excluded under the contract and any contract modifications. The bill provides that the purchaser of a prepaid funeral contract, upon cancellation of the contract, must receive a refund of half of all earnings attributable to the amount paid for the contract as well as the actual amount paid and sets forth the circumstances under which the goods and services provided under a fully paid prepaid funeral benefits contract may be modified after the death of the beneficiary. The bill also requires a waiver of the right of cancellation of a prepaid funeral benefits contract to be contained in a separate document and to be signed by the purchaser and seller not earlier than the 15th day after the date of the purchase of the contract.

            Senate Bill 314 also amends the Health and Safety Code to authorize the finance commission to adopt rules relating to perpetual care cemeteries and to clarify provisions relating to examinations of perpetual care cemetery records and enforcement of the law or administrative rules relating to such cemeteries by the commission. The bill provides that a perpetual care cemetery owner or operator may not bury the remains of a person who caused the death of another person and was convicted of a crime in connection with that death, or was identified as the cause but died before being convicted, in the same cemetery as the victim of the crime if the prohibition is requested by the person having the right to control the disposition of the victim's remains, and it provides for damages to be paid by the cemetery to the person requesting the prohibition if this provision is violated.

            The bill also requires a trier of fact who finds, after a hearing under the Administrative Procedures Act, a pattern of wilful disregard for the law or rules of the finance commission to recommend that the maximum administrative penalty be imposed or that the person's permit be canceled or denied renewal if the person holds a permit. Finally, the bill amends the Insurance Code to exempt a funeral home employee who is licensed to sell certain life insurance policies relating to the delivery of funeral services under regulated prepaid funeral contracts from continuing education requirements for licensing, and it amends the Business & Commerce Code to require the payment of a check at par by a payor bank on which the check is drawn regardless of whether the payee holds an account at the bank.