At the Cemetery Board’s February 12, 2015 meeting, it was announced that there had been significant progress made on converting fidelity bonding requirements to a commercial crimes coverage provision. Concerns had been raised about the cost of commercial crime coverage required by proposed cemetery regulations. A change to commercial crime coverage was necessary because the fidelity bonds required by 19 NYCRR § 200.5 were no longer available and had been replaced by commercial crime coverage. Large cemeteries, in particular, had balked at the requirement that coverage be $15,000 or 10% of total financial assets, whichever is greater. Cemeteries with substantial assets would incur great expense in obtaining coverage in such large amounts and the coverage may not even be available. A compromise was reached that provides for an overall cap of $500,000 in coverage but allows the Division of Cemeteries to increase the amount of coverage if circumstances warranted it. If the Division of Cemeteries did order an increase, this order is still subject to challenge by a cemetery that was aggrieved by such an order pursuant to 19 NYCRR § 200.2(b). The Division cannot, however, require coverage greater than 10% of total financial assets. The Cemetery Board unanimously approved a resolution to publish a notice of proposed rule-making with the compromise language on commercial crime coverage.

The proposed rulemaking related to this was published on December 9, 2015. Starting in the next week or so, will have a five part series to discuss the final rulemaking proposal and the various provisions included therein.