1. If an agreement is made by a person to furnish, upon the future death of a person named or implied in the agreement, cemetery merchandise, a minimum of one hundred twenty-five percent of the wholesale cost of the cemetery merchandise, based upon the current advertised prices available from a manufacturer or wholesaler who has delivered the same or substantially the same type of merchandise to the seller during the last twelve months, shall be and remain trust funds until purchase of the merchandise or the occurrence of the death of the person for whose benefit the funds were paid, unless the funds are sooner released to the person making the payment by mutual consent of the parties. Payments otherwise subject to this section are not exempt merely because they are held in certificates of deposit. The commissioner may adopt rules to prohibit the commingling of trust funds with other funds of the seller.
2. The seller shall keep copies of all price advertisements upon which the seller relies to determine the wholesale cost. The copies of price advertisements so maintained shall be made available to the commissioner upon request. The seller shall review wholesale costs no less than annually and make additional deposits as necessary to assure that the amount held in trust is always equal to or in excess of one hundred twenty-five percent of the wholesale cost of the merchandise. The seller and the manufacturer or wholesaler upon whose price the seller relies to determine the wholesale cost shall not be commonly owned or affiliated.
3. Interest or income earned on amounts deposited in trust under this subsection shall remain in trust under the same terms and conditions as the payments made under the agreement and purchasers shall have a right to a total refund of principal and interest or income in the event of nonperformance.
4. If an agreement subject to this subsection is to be paid in installment payments, the seller shall deposit fifty percent of each payment in trust until the full amount to be trusted has been deposited. If the agreement is financed with or sold to a financial institution, the agreement shall be considered paid in full and the deposit requirements of this section shall be satisfied within fifteen days after the close of the month of receipt of the funds from the financial institution.
5. An agreement may be funded by insurance proceeds derived from a policy issued by an insurance company authorized to conduct business in this state. Such funding may be in lieu of a trust fund if the payments are made directly to the insurance company by the purchaser of the agreement.
6. This section does not apply to payments for merchandise delivered to the purchaser. Delivery includes storage in a warehouse under the control of the seller or any other warehouse or storage facility approved by the commissioner when a receipt of ownership in the name of the purchaser is delivered to the purchaser, the merchandise is insured against loss, the merchandise is protected against damage, title has been transferred to the purchaser, the merchandise is appropriately identified and described in a manner that it can be distinguished from other similar items of merchandise unless this identification requirement with respect to bronze merchandise is waived by the commissioner by rule, the method of storage allows for visual audits of the merchandise, and the annual reporting requirements of section 523E.2, subsection 1, are satisfied.
90 Acts, ch 1213, § 13; 92 Acts, ch 1078, § 12; 95 Acts, ch 149, §12, 13
Referred to in § 523E.2, 523E.7, 523E.8, 523E.9, 523E.10, 523E.12, 523E.15, 523E.19, 523E.22
Iowa General Assembly
Search: Iowa Code 1995SUPPLEMENT
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