Austin & Bell Funeral Home

“Funeral directors need to know how important preneed is. When you have a slow week, you start to wonder if you will ever get another call. But, you can look at your preneed backlog and know that you have business coming.” The family-owned Austin & Bell Funeral Home recently celebrated its 175th anniversary, thanks in part to a strong preneed program offered through Homesteaders Life Company.

“Preneed is huge. That’s our lifeblood. We support preneed, preneed supports us and it helps us grow our business,” said Bob Bell, fifth-generation owner and funeral director at the Springfield, TN, firm. “We’ve tried other insurance companies over the years, but Homesteaders has the resources we need. It’s very simple and easy to use.”

Bell and his staff have found success working with the Independent Funeral Planning Alliance (IFPA), a Homesteaders-affiliated marketing organization. “I decided to work with IFPA because I wanted to partner with people I felt comfortable with, people who would represent our funeral home well,” he explained.

“With everything a funeral home has to do on a daily basis, overseeing a preneed program is very time consuming,” said Sean Patterson, Austin & Bell’s preplanning counselor from IFPA. “We take very seriously what IFPA suggests, and the results have been phenomenal.”

Bell hopes that his success with preneed inspires the next generation of funeral professionals to follow suit. “Having a lot of preneed on the books is not only good for securing our future business, but it also takes the money aspect out of arranging a funeral,” he described. “It allows us to do what we love to do.”