afpHorizon, a premier preneed organization, has selected the Travel Plan by Inman as their travel plan provider. “We only offer products that align with our own high standards for customer service and quality. The owner, Dave McComb, is a 4th generation funeral director and dedicated to serving the death care industry. He truly understands the needs of funeral directors as well as the families they serve. This is what sets them apart from other companies, ” stated AFP Horizon Executive Vice President, Mark Hutto. “It is our honor to be associated with a company like AFP Horizon said Dave McComb, Inman Shipping Worldwide CEO.” “I have known Mark Hutto and Terry Woodall for years and look forward to working with them and their team.” The Travel Plan by Inman offers AFP Horizon families peace of mind in knowing loved ones won’t have to worry about details or cost should they die away from home. A one-time fee of $450 covers the cost of bringing a loved one home for ceremony if they die more than 100 miles from home. This coverage is good for anywhere in the world. Costs could range anywhere from $1,500 – $15,000. About afpHorizon: afpHORIZON has been helping funeral homes since 1997, providing our partner funeral homes with ongoing training, marketing and services, as well as a range of pre-need funding options. We are a financial and marketing organization whose mission is to help you promote your funeral home, build customer loyalty, and increase your at-need and pre-need sales. For more information visit www.afphorizon.com/ or contact us at (936) 537-7163. About the Travel Plan by Inman: For more information of the Travel Plan by Inman: Contact Lori Davis (260) 247-2202 or lori.davis@shipinman. The post afpHorizon selects the Travel Plan by Inman as their preferred Travel Plan provider appeared first on Connecting Directors. afpHorizon selects the Travel Plan by Inman as their preferred Travel Plan provider published first on YouTube via Tumblr afpHorizon selects the Travel Plan by Inman as their preferred Travel Plan provider
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Death of Cryptocurrency Exchange Founder Exemplifies the Importance of Securing Digital Assets4/16/2019 We all know that Rule Number One of online security is “Never share your passwords.” That’s great advice…unless those passwords literally hold the only key to $140 million belonging to your 115,000 clients. Feature image photo credit: STEPHEN HUI In December 2018, Gerald Cotten, founder of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX, died from complications of Crohn’s Disease while helping to build an orphanage in India. Cotten built and managed the company from his password-protected home laptop, and was the only person to move funds in and out of the company’s crypto vaults. Although others in the company–including his wife, who took over as leader of QuadrigaCX after Cotten’s death–have tried to break into the laptop to recover the access keys to the vaults holding $140 million, all attempts to date have been unsuccessful. WIthout this top-level access, clients have absolutely no access to their funds, and potentially no recourse to recover their losses. Unlike non-crypto technology companies and federally-regulated financial institutions, cryptocurrency startups are not required to demonstrate any level of risk management or governance like password redundancy. As the QuadrigaCX saga drags on, the crypto world is waiting, watching, and learning what not to do so this never happens again. Avoiding your own QuadrigaCX situation Despite this cautionary tale, sharing passwords is still taboo–and it should be. The same goes for using an easily-guessed password or security multiple devices or programs using the same password. But with the proliferation of online-only billing, account management, and other important aspects of your daily life, what would happen if you passed away? Would they know what bills you paid online, and how to access those payee’s sites? Would they be able to access your retirement account online? Would anyone even know how many financial assets like investments accounts which you managed entirely online without the need of paper statements? If Gerald Cotten’s untimely death–he was only 30–tells us anything, it’s that it’s never too early to ensure that every aspect of your estate is in order and those plans are secure. Unfortunately, only four in ten older Americans have an “exit strategy” in place. Luckily, for those of us who live most of lives online, there are some nifty new estate planning web-based programs and apps that not only define our final wishes but also store and protect important digital documents. How Can I Help Families Avoid Digital Lockouts?Everplans, a platform that allows users to create and store your retirement and end-of-life plans online, recently rolled out a consumer version to complement its suite of tools originally built for financial advisors. For only $75 per year, an Everplan subscription provides up to 5gb of storage in a digital vault to keep your personal and household information, final wishes, uploaded documents (wills, trusts, directives, insurance policies), and account/password details. In addition, Everplans allows you to invite “deputies” who can then access your plan and locate documents virtually using their own login information. Everplans secures your account and data with “bank-level” encryption and requires two-step authentication to access your account if you misplace your password or its stolen. Another online estate planning option, Whealthcare Planning, offers similar options, but with a focus on managing the transition of financial and healthcare decision-making authority. For example, through your Whealthcare portal you can create a personalized financial caretaking plan meant to assist your family members take over seamlessly when you can no longer manage on your own. This plan also helps point out gaps in your retirement and estate plans and identifies traits that might put you at risk for poor financial decision-making or financial abuse. Outside of these all-encompassing planning tools, there are other ways to ensure that your loved ones have access to your online assets in case of an emergency. LastPass, a password storage and security program, offers options to securely manage and share your own passwords or those of your entire family in one place, using only a single family password to access your personal vaults. Although most of us don’t hold hundreds of millions of dollars in assets of 115,000 people on our personal laptops or mobile devices, the QuadrigaCX story is one that should make us all think twice about who will take over our digital lives when the time comes. The post Death of Cryptocurrency Exchange Founder Exemplifies the Importance of Securing Digital Assets appeared first on Connecting Directors. Death of Cryptocurrency Exchange Founder Exemplifies the Importance of Securing Digital Assets published first on YouTube via Tumblr Death of Cryptocurrency Exchange Founder Exemplifies the Importance of Securing Digital Assets Efforts to communicate with the dead is a phenomenon first documented in the Bible with the Witch of Endor, who Saul seeks out to help him make contact with the long-dead prophet Samuel. From there, history reflects our ongoing and increasing fascination with making contact with the departed: from the mediums of the Middle Ages to the colonial witch trials to the 19th century Spiritualism movement that sparked group seances, so-called psychics, and Ouija boards. It stands to reason that today’s technology would inspire new ways to talk to our loved ones who have passed on. But are we truly ready for them to talk back? Texts from the graveLet’s face it: we all talk to our deceased loved ones. Whether it’s a silent missive (“I wish you were here to see this, Grandpa”), a cathartic letter that (of course) we never mail, or talking to them out loud at the graveside, it’s just part of the grieving and acceptance process. We don’t expect an answer. Texting is the 21st century version of this. With more than 15 million texts sent each minute, texting is eclipsing email, phone, and even face-to-face conversation. It follows that if you’ve communicated with someone primarily via text while they were alive, you might choose texting to send them messages after they’re gone. Unlike posting to a deceased person’s public memorialized Facebook page, texting allows the grieving person to send private, personal messages that may help them deal with their loss. Unfortunately, when a deceased person’s mobile account is cancelled, the phone company usually reassigns the phone number to a new user. For someone who has been texting a loved one regularly since their death, receiving a reply text from the number can be extremely disconcerting. While some of the new number owners have kindly responded that the number has been reassigned, others have used the opportunity to play sick jokes on the grieving texter by pretending to be their loved one communicating from the grave. Enter griefbotsBut for those who actually do want to hear back from their deceased loved one, there are griefbots. In 2015, AI startup founder Eugenia Kuyda created a chatbot so she could text with her best friend Roman Mazurenko, who was killed in a car accident in his early thirties. Using about 8,000 lines of Roman’s real-life text history, Kuyda employed artificial intelligence to make the bot reply to her texts in a fairly coherent and very Roman-like manner. Today anyone can download the “Roman Mazurenko: A Digital Avatar” app from iTunes to have their own conversation with the seemingly-immortal Russian entrepreneur. Roman may have been the first to be immortalized in this way, but he won’t be the last. The website of a company called Eternime (eterni.me) poses the question “Who wants to live forever?” and offers the opportunity to “become virtually immortal.” To date 43,644 people have signed up to participate in the beta version of Eternime, which promises to create an “intelligent avatar that looks like you” and will “live forever and allow other people in the future to access your memories.” Complicating griefEugenia Kuyda was inspired to create the Roman app after watching a 2013 episode of Black Mirror, a UK anthology series on Netflix. In the episode entitled “Be Right Back” a “lonely grieving Martha” uses an AI-driven service to “reconnect with her late lover.” Although the bot initially comforts Martha, it eventually leads to a grief that spans decades. Grieving the loss of a loved one is normal, but it eventually evolves and changes as we adapt to our loss. For some people, grief becomes part of their ongoing functioning; this is called “integrated grief.” Some people experience “complicated grief,” in which they’re preoccupied with memories of the deceased. For these people,their grief never really goes away, and they never quite adapt to their loss or truly accept the fact that their loved one is never coming back. According to Psychology Today, complicated grievers “keep the yearning process alive through their habits,” like constantly looking at photos or videos of the deceased. Or texting them, or chatting with their avatar, perhaps? Even Kuyda questioned her own invention’s impact on the grieving process. “It’s definitely the future–I’m always for the future,” she told The Verge:
The post Texting the Dead is Definitely a Thing…From Sick Pranks to Griefbots appeared first on Connecting Directors. Texting the Dead is Definitely a Thing…From Sick Pranks to Griefbots published first on YouTube via Tumblr Texting the Dead is Definitely a Thing…From Sick Pranks to Griefbots As an Albuquerque-based business, A Good Goodbye is connected to many people and organizations in the community. The award-winning Before I Die New Mexico Festival is successful because of contacts Gail Rubin has made. Gail is paying it forward with a booth at the annual B2B Expo on April 23, 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. […] via Tumblr April 23: A Good Goodbye at B2B Networking Expo What Makes Us Fundamentally Different Than Any Other Company in The Deathcare Space | DISRUPTu! 0624/11/2019 This episode is completely different than any other episode. In this episode, Ryan talks directly about DISRUPT Media and the 3 core things that make us fundamentally different than ANY OTHER marketing company, Agency or social media services provider in the deathcare space. Ryan discusses our unique partnership with Facebook, organic content and being the only social media first company in the deathcare space. This is a ton of value packed into less than 10 minutes. Perhaps, this could be the most profitable video you ever watch ? Learn more about DISRUPT Media: https://www.disruptmedia.co The post What Makes Us Fundamentally Different Than Any Other Company in The Deathcare Space | DISRUPTu! 062 appeared first on Connecting Directors. What Makes Us Fundamentally Different Than Any Other Company in The Deathcare Space | DISRUPTu! 062 published first on YouTube via Tumblr What Makes Us Fundamentally Different Than Any Other Company in The Deathcare Space | DISRUPTu! 062 The ugly “F” word. No not, the swear word. But it might as well be… The word I’m referring to is funeral, as in, funeral plans. As in my own funeral plans. Everytime I tell someone that I’m making my own funeral plans, I hear some version of: “Are you dying?” “Is everything okay… do […] The post Please Congratulate Me On My Funeral Plans appeared first on funeralOne Blog. Please Congratulate Me On My Funeral Plans published first on YouTube via Tumblr Please Congratulate Me On My Funeral Plans On so many levels, David Sconce’s story is one that deathcare professionals don’t like to hear. His tale of deception, greed, and complete disregard for tradition, decency, and even the law is disgraceful. It’s a true shame that his name has to be connected to the funeral industry at all. Yet, somehow Sconce continues to make news 22 years after authorities discovered burning body parts in a ceramics kiln Sconce was using as a makeshift crematory. When Hesperia, California assistant fire chief received a call in January 1987 from a man complaining about noxious smoke pouring from a neighboring industrial building, he scoffed at the man’s accusation that the smoke smelled like burning flesh. “I said, ‘I don’t think so, it’s a ceramics shop,’” the chief later told the Los Angeles Times. “But then the man said, ‘Don’t tell me they’re not burning bodies. I was at the ovens at Auschwitz.’” The macabre morgueOscar Ceramics was the latest in a string of shady money-making schemes for David Sconce, a failed college football player and fourth-generation crematory owner. His great-grandfather, Lawrence Lamb, purchased the Pasadena Crematorium in Altadena, California a few years before starting Lamb Funeral Home in 1929 just two miles away. David’s mother Laurieanne Lamb Sconce and her husband Jerry bought out the family business from her father in 1985. After David dropped out of college, worked as a casino dealer and a hockey stadium usher, and was unable to pass the police department’s vision test, his parents convinced him to get his embalmer’s license and join the family business at age 26. Finding embalming school “boring,” David decided to leverage the family’s crematorium as an entrepreneurial opportunity. He would attract business from area funeral homes with his half-priced cremations and make up for the low cost with high volume. His business plan caught on, and business boomed. Built in 1895, the Pasadena Crematorium offered only two ovens, each of which David would stuff with five, six, and eventually as many as 18 bodies at a time. As profits grew, so did David’s sick ego. Dubbed “the Cremation King of California” by a journalist, David equipped his new Corvette with vanity plates reading “I BRN 4 U.” In 1986, David Sconce and his parents expanded the family enterprise with the creation of Coastal International Eye and Tissue Bank. The sole purpose of the company was to facilitate David’s already-flourishing side gig trafficking organs he’d removed from soon-to-be-cremated bodies. If consent for the removals was not offered, David’s mother would forge the signature of a family member. Harvested hearts, eyes, and brains were then sold on the black market for up to $95 a pop. Later, David’s cash-paid employees would tell horrific tales of “Little Hitler’s” (as they called him) joy at “popping chops,” his term for extracting gold teeth, which he’d sell to a local jeweler for an extra $6,000 each month. They said David would lift and carry cardboard-enclosed corpses around the facility for exercise, use a crowbar to crack open sternums, and store eyeballs in used cola cans. The beginning of the endAlthough the crematorium’s ovens would eventually operate 24 hours a day, David Sconce continued to push the limits of maximum capacity. On November 23, 1986, the nearly century-old facility burned to the ground after David’s employees somehow shoved 19 bodies into each of the ovens at once. What could have been (and should have been) a career-ending calamity was no problem for David Sconce. He simply shifted operations to a metal warehouse he’d already purchased in Hesperia. Operating under a license for a ceramics factory, David cremated bodies in the facility’s massive brick kilns until the fire chief’s gruesome discovery in January 1987. David Sconce’s 1989 trial resulted in a five-year prison term for mutilating corpses, conducting mass cremations, and having his employees “rough up” three rival morticians. While serving his sentence, he narrowly escaped charges for the murder of the owner of a local crematorium, although David had openly bragged to his lackies that he’d slipped deadly oleander into the man’s drink the day he died. At the time, the charges wouldn’t stick because three toxicologists couldn’t agree that oleander was the cause of death. David ultimately served only two-and-a-half years of his sentence and was released in 1991. His sentence also carried the caveat of lifetime probation, which he violated often in multiple ways, including selling forged bus tickets in Arizona and attempting to pawn a stolen rifle in Montana (he and his parents were penniless after settling a $15.4 million dollar lawsuit out of court in 1992). When he was extradited back to California for his parole violations, David pleaded guilty to conspiring to hire a hit-man to execute yet another rival and in 2013 was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. The aftermathTwo books, entitled Chop Shop and A Family Business, have been written about David Sconce’s escapades. The Lamb Funeral Home building in Pasadena was sold to another funeral home in the mid-1990s; when that venture failed the facility stood vacant for several years. In 2015, an LA-based paranormal investigation group suggested in a blog post that the building may be haunted, but it was eventually purchased by a light bulb distributor which in 2018 turned the second floor into a three-bedroom apartment available for rent for $4,700 per month. On February 19, 2019, a reader of the paranormal website commented on the blog about Lamb Funeral Home that his or her mother-in-law’s body was one of those mistreated by David Sconce. “In case you were curious,” the reader wrote, “in a class action suit, the mishandling of your loved one’s remains is worth about $1200 a body.” The post The Sad, Sordid Saga of Criminal Cremator David Sconce appeared first on Connecting Directors. The Sad, Sordid Saga of Criminal Cremator David Sconce published first on YouTube via Tumblr The Sad, Sordid Saga of Criminal Cremator David Sconce Brookfield, Wis. – The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) has released an e-book version of the ninth edition of “The History of American Funeral Directing” by Robert Habenstein and William Lamers. The print version of the ninth edition of the history book was released last year. “We are extremely pleased to offer a new way to access ‘The History of American Funeral Directing,’” said NFDA Director of Education Carmella Hansen. “This book has helped generations of funeral professionals understand and appreciate the remarkable history of funeral service. Now, both funeral directors and mortuary students alike can have convenient access via their Kindle device.” The ninth edition has been fully-edited, updated and newly organized and provides a comprehensive look at the history of funeral service in the United States. The new edition includes:
In his preface, Chris Raymond, editor of the ninth edition, writes, “Since its initial publication more than 60 years ago, ‘The History of American Funeral Directing’ by Robert Habenstein and William Lamers has proven indispensable to funeral service professionals, mortuary science students and scholars alike … [It] continues the mission established long ago by the National Funeral Directors Association of chronicling and sharing the crucial role played by the select group of men and women who care for both the living and the dead – then, now and always.” The e-book version of “The History of American Funeral Directing” is available via Amazon.com (Kindle devices) for $55. A print edition of “The History of American Funeral Directing” is $70 (ISBN# 978-0-692-12056-9). The book can be purchased online through the NFDA Resource Store, www.nfda.org/store (NFDA product code BK583), or by calling the association at 800-228-6332. NFDA is the world’s leading and largest funeral service association, serving more than 20,000 individual members who represent nearly 11,000 funeral homes in the United States and 49 countries around the world. NFDA is the trusted leader, beacon for ethics and the strongest advocate for the profession. NFDA is the association of choice because it offers funeral professionals comprehensive educational resources, tools to manage successful businesses, guidance to become pillars in their communities and the expertise to foster future generations of funeral professionals. NFDA is headquartered in Brookfield, Wis., and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.nfda.org. The post NFDA Releases First-ever E-book Version of “The History of American Funeral Directing” appeared first on Connecting Directors. NFDA Releases First-ever E-book Version of “The History of American Funeral Directing” published first on YouTube via Tumblr NFDA Releases First-ever E-book Version of “The History of American Funeral Directing” Ted Williams was a baseball legend. During his 21-year career with the Boston Red Sox, he won six batting titles, led the American League in home runs and RBIs four times, and was the last Major League player ever to hold a .400 batting average, ending his 1941 season with a .406. Even at 39, he was hitting .388. His performance led to his 1966 induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Today, though, when someone mentions the name “Ted Williams,” it isn’t his phenomenal performance on the field that first comes to mind. Unfortunately, it’s his ongoing status as a decapitated, mutilated, cryonically-frozen body that’s now permanently attached to his memory. Final wishes?When a famous person passes away, we expect a brief flutter of activity in the media — maybe a 60-second spot with a highlight reel and an “In Memoriam” screen. And the more distant their fame from current events, the less screen time they garner. But from the moment Williams died on July 5, 2002 at age 83, he’s been making news. First it was the decision of two of his three children to honor William’s wishes to have his body cryonically frozen (the third sibling fought to have her father cremated, as he had originally requested). Within months the news broke that Williams’ remains had been decapitated by surgeons and stored separately from his body in the Scottsdale, Arizona Alcor cryonics facility. To an audience still puzzling over the science of cryonics and Williams’ hopes to one day be revived, this was an atrocity. As a footnote, it was also reported that several samples of Williams’ DNA were missing. But the worst was yet to come. Fast forward seven years to 2009, when a book by a former employee of Alcor hit the shelves containing explosive allegations of Alcor’s abusive treatment of Williams’ frozen head. Author Larry Johnson wrote that an empty tuna can was used as a pedestal to support the slugger’s head while experiments (which subsequently cracked his frozen brain) were conducted. When the tuna can became stuck to the head, an Alcor employee allegedly tried to dislodge it by swinging at it with a monkey wrench, in the process missing the can and connecting with Williams’ head instead. Johnson wrote that the impact sprayed “bits of frozen head” around the room. Patient rightsAlcor denied Johnson’s claims, promised legal action, and the spotlight on Williams and Alcor faded once again. But in 2016, the subject raised its ugly head once again when a terminally ill 14-year-old girl in the United Kingdom announced her intentions to be be cryonically preserved. It seems that any story about cryonics inevitably mentions Williams; as arguably the most famous individual to be frozen in liquid nitrogen, his name is now inextricably linked to the industry. The 2016 cryonics controversy called for regulation and argued for patient rights — but not the kind that would have prevented or punished the alleged mistreatment at the Alcor lab. Instead, the discussion involved determining exactly who decides if a body will be frozen — the decedent, next of kin, or the state. For other methods of disposition, the rules are clear, as are the regulations surrounding the ethical and lawful treatment of human remains. In 2004, Arizona Senator Bill Stumps introduced a bill calling to remove authority of cryonics in Arizona from cryonic scientists and facilities like Alcor and transfer authority to the Arizona Board of Funeral Directors and Embalmers. “Funeral home scandal”Alcor, the only cryonics facility in Arizona and one of only three in the United States, responded by publishing an open letter from Dr. Brian Wowk, a prominent organ preservation researcher. In increasingly-passionate language, Wowk first argues that the bill falsely compares cryonics to embalming, and therefore is “comparable to the Funeral Board assuming authority over the job of a brain surgeon.” Wowk then addresses the “allegations of wrongdoing” regarding the separation of Ted Williams’ head from his body (the monkey-wrench-to-tuna-can story was at the time five years away). Calling the stories a “witch hunt,” Wowk wrote: “Consider if a journalist did this expose of the funeral industry: ‘Funeral Home Scandal: Bodies injected with poison, organs mutilated, remains stuffed into wood boxes and covered with dirt!’ It’s all true, right? Of course, if a disgruntled apprentice embalmer went to a sports magazine describing in graphic detail the use of a trocar during embalming of a sports celebrity, or the physical effects of cremation, he would be escorted out of the building by security.” Of course, patient rights and who regulates the cyronics industry are just two of a multitude of issues being debated. Discussions continue about how or if life insurance policies should be paid when the insured could potentially be brought back to life, whether or not revival of the body is even feasible, and even if attorneys should continue to offer “revival trusts” for when the cryonically preserved person comes back. The post Who Should Have Called Foul When Cryonics Lab Took a Swing at Ted Williams’ Frozen Head? appeared first on Connecting Directors. Who Should Have Called Foul When Cryonics Lab Took a Swing at Ted Williams’ Frozen Head? published first on YouTube via Tumblr Who Should Have Called Foul When Cryonics Lab Took a Swing at Ted Williams’ Frozen Head? OMAHA, Neb. — If you’ve flipped through the latest issues of funeral service’s finest trade publications, you may have seen the news: Physicians Mutual is expanding its wings – and territory – by rolling out its preneed program to more states. Funeral homes in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Mississippi and Texas can now experience the power of a progressive preneed program with Physicians Mutual. “This is an exciting development, and the timing couldn’t be better,” said Brice Ballard, vice president at Physicians Mutual. “We have a lot of innovations coming soon to our preneed program, and our goal is to make them available to as many funeral homes as possible. We believe in the power of preplanning and want to extend that to more families in more communities.” The company’s latest innovation is the Custom Index Performance option, which allows funeral home owners to experience higher growth potential without worrying about losing money if the market takes a downturn.* Physicians Mutual intends to continue its expansion and will soon offer preneed insurance in most states. To find out if their preneed program is available in your area, or to learn more about the Custom Index Performance option, call 1-800-974-1802. *Preneed program not yet available in all states. About the Physicians Mutual Family Physicians Mutual Insurance Company and Physicians Life Insurance Company are members of the Physicians Mutual family. Physicians Mutual Insurance Company offers reliable Medicare Supplement, dental and supplemental health insurance. Physicians Life Insurance Company provides important life insurance coverage and annuities. They entered the funeral preplanning market to help meet the growing needs of funeral home owners and the families they serve. The companies have more than $3.8 billion in assets and consistently maintain some of the The post Physicians Mutual Expanding Preneed Program to More States appeared first on Connecting Directors. Physicians Mutual Expanding Preneed Program to More States published first on YouTube via Tumblr Physicians Mutual Expanding Preneed Program to More States |
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