2009 Iowa Code
Title 13 - Commerce
Subtitle 1 - Insurance and Related Regulation
CHAPTER 523I - IOWA CEMETERY ACT
523I.102 - DEFINITIONS.

        523I.102  DEFINITIONS.
         For purposes of this chapter, unless the context otherwise
      requires:
         1.  "Authorized to do business within this state" means a
      person licensed, registered, or subject to regulation by an agency of
      the state of Iowa or who has filed a consent to service of process
      with the commissioner for purposes of this chapter.
         2.  "Burial site" means any area, except a cemetery, that is
      used to inter or scatter remains.
         3.  "Capital gains" means appreciation in the value of trust
      assets for which a market value may be determined with reasonable
      certainty after deduction of investment losses, taxes, expenses
      incurred in the sale of trust assets, any costs of the operation of
      the trust, examination expenses, and any audit expenses.
         4.  "Care fund" means funds set aside for the care of a
      perpetual care cemetery, including all of the following:
         a.  Money or real or personal property impressed with a trust
      by the terms of this chapter.
         b.  Contributions in the form of a gift, grant, or bequest.
         c.  Any accumulated income that the trustee of the fund or the
      cemetery allocates to principal.
         5.  "Casket" means a rigid container which is designed for the
      encasement of human remains and which is usually constructed of wood,
      metal, fiberglass, plastic, or like material and ornamented and lined
      with fabric.
         6.  "Cemetery" means any area that is or was open to use by
      the public in general or any segment thereof and is used or is
      intended to be used to inter or scatter remains.  "Cemetery" does
      not include the following:
         a.  A private burial site where use is restricted to members
      of a family, if the interment rights are conveyed without a monetary
      payment, fee, charge, or other valuable form of compensation or
      consideration.
         b.  A private burial site where use is restricted to a narrow
      segment of the public, if the interment rights are conveyed without a
      monetary payment, fee, charge, or other valuable form of compensation
      or consideration.
         c.  A pioneer cemetery.
         7.  "Columbarium" means a structure, room, or space in a
      mausoleum or other building containing niches or recesses for
      disposition of cremated remains.
         8.  "Commissioner" means the commissioner of insurance.
         9.  "Common business enterprise" means a group of two or more
      business entities that share common ownership in excess of fifty
      percent.
         10.  "Disinterment" means to remove human remains from their
      place of final disposition.
         11.  "Doing business in this state" means issuing or
      performing wholly or in part any term of an interment rights
      agreement executed within the state of Iowa.
         12.  "Financial institution" means a state or federally
      insured bank, savings and loan association, credit union, trust
      department thereof, or a trust company that is authorized to do
      business within this state, that has been granted trust powers under
      the laws of this state or the United States, and that holds funds
      under a trust agreement.  "Financial institution" does not
      include a cemetery or any person employed by or directly involved
      with a cemetery.
         13.  "Garden" means an area within a cemetery established by
      the cemetery as a subdivision for organizational purposes, not for
      sale purposes.
         14.  "Grave space" means a space of ground in a cemetery that
      is used or intended to be used for an in-ground burial.
         15.  "Gross selling price" means the aggregate amount a
      purchaser is obligated to pay for interment rights, exclusive of
      finance charges.
         16.  "Inactive cemetery" means a cemetery that is not
      operating on a regular basis, is not offering to sell or provide
      interments or other services reasonably necessary for interment, and
      does not provide or permit reasonable ingress or egress for the
      purposes of visiting interment spaces.
         17.  "Income" means the return in money or property derived
      from the use of trust principal after deduction of investment losses,
      taxes, and expenses incurred in the sale of trust assets, any cost of
      the operation of the trust, examination expenses or fees, and any
      audit expenses.  "Income" includes but is not limited to:
         a.  Rent of real or personal property, including sums received
      for cancellation or renewal of a lease and any royalties.
         b.  Interest on money lent, including sums received as
      consideration for prepayment of principal.
         c.  Cash dividends paid on corporate stock.
         d.  Interest paid on deposit funds or debt obligations.
         e.  Gain realized from the sale of trust assets.
         18.  "Insolvent" means the inability to pay debts as they
      become due in the usual course of business.
         19.  "Interment rights" means the rights to place remains in a
      specific location for use as a final resting place or memorial.
         20.  "Interment rights agreement" means an agreement to
      furnish memorials, memorialization, opening and closing services, or
      interment rights.
         21.  "Interment space" means a space used or intended to be
      used for the interment of remains including but not limited to a
      grave space, lawn crypt, mausoleum crypt, and niche.
         22.  "Lawn crypt" means a preplaced enclosed chamber, which is
      usually constructed of reinforced concrete and poured in place, or a
      precast unit installed in quantity, either side-by-side or at
      multiple depths, and covered by earth or sod.
         23.  "Lot" means an area in a cemetery containing more than
      one interment space which is uniquely identified by an alphabetical,
      numeric, or alphanumerical identification system.
         24.  "Maintenance fund" means funds set aside for the
      maintenance of a nonperpetual care cemetery, including all of the
      following:
         a.  Money or real or personal property impressed with a trust
      by the terms of this chapter.
         b.  Contributions in the form of a gift, grant, or bequest.
         c.  Any accumulated income that the trustee of the fund or the
      cemetery allocates to principal.
         25.  "Mausoleum" means an aboveground structure designed for
      the entombment of human remains.
         26.  "Mausoleum crypt" means a chamber in a mausoleum of
      sufficient size to contain casketed human remains.
         27.  "Memorial" means any product, including any foundation
      other than a mausoleum or columbarium, used for identifying an
      interment space or for commemoration of the life, deeds, or career of
      a decedent including but not limited to a monument, marker, niche
      plate, urn garden plaque, crypt plate, cenotaph, marker bench, and
      vase.
         28.  "Memorial care" means any care provided or to be provided
      for the general maintenance of memorials including foundation repair
      or replacement, resetting or straightening tipped memorials,
      repairing or replacing inadvertently damaged memorials, and any other
      care clearly specified in the purchase agreement.
         29.  "Memorial dealer" means any person offering or selling
      memorials retail to the public.
         30.  "Memorialization" means any permanent system designed to
      mark or record the name and other data pertaining to a decedent.
         31.  "Merchandise" means any personal property offered or sold
      for use in connection with the funeral, final disposition,
      memorialization, or interment of human remains, but which is
      exclusive of interment rights.
         32.  "Neglected cemetery" means a cemetery where there has
      been a failure to cut grass or weeds or care for graves, memorials or
      memorialization, walls, fences, driveways, and buildings, or for
      which proper records of interments have not been maintained.
         33.  "Niche" means a recess or space in a columbarium or
      mausoleum used for placement of cremated human remains.
         34.  "Opening and closing services" means one or more services
      necessarily or customarily provided in connection with the interment
      or entombment of human remains or a combination thereof.
         35.  "Operating a cemetery" means offering to sell or selling
      interment rights, or any service or merchandise necessarily or
      customarily provided for a funeral, or for the entombment or
      cremation of a dead human, or any combination thereof, including but
      not limited to opening and closing services, caskets, memorials,
      vaults, urns, and interment receptacles.
         36.  "Outer burial container" means any container which is
      designed for placement in the ground around a casket or an urn
      including but not limited to containers commonly known as burial
      vaults, urn vaults, grave boxes, grave liners, and lawn crypts.
         37.  "Perpetual care cemetery" includes all of the following:
         a.  Any cemetery that was organized or commenced business in
      this state on or after July 1, 1995.
         b.  Any cemetery that has established a care fund in
      compliance with section 523I.810.
         c.  Any cemetery that represents that it is a perpetual care
      cemetery in its interment rights agreement.
         d.  Any cemetery that represents in any other manner that the
      cemetery provides perpetual, permanent, or guaranteed care.
         38.  "Person" means an individual, firm, corporation,
      partnership, joint venture, limited liability company, association,
      trustee, government or governmental subdivision, agency, or other
      entity, or any combination thereof.
         39.  "Pioneer cemetery" means a cemetery where there were
      twelve or fewer burials in the preceding fifty years.
         40.  "Purchaser" means a person who purchases memorials,
      memorialization, opening and closing services, scattering services,
      interment rights, or a combination thereof.  A purchaser need not be
      a beneficiary of the interment rights agreement.
         41.  "Relative" means a great-grandparent, grandparent,
      father, mother, spouse, child, brother, sister, nephew, niece, uncle,
      aunt, first cousin, second cousin, third cousin, or grandchild
      connected to a person by either blood or affinity.
         42.  "Religious cemetery" means a cemetery that is owned,
      operated, or controlled by a recognized church or denomination, or a
      cemetery designated as such in the official Catholic directory on
      file with the insurance division or in a similar publication of a
      recognized church or denomination, or a cemetery that the
      commissioner determines is operating as a religious cemetery upon
      review of an application by the cemetery that includes a description
      of the cemetery's affiliation with a recognized church or
      denomination, the extent to which the affiliate organization is
      responsible for the financial and contractual obligations of the
      cemetery, or the provision of the Internal Revenue Code, if any, that
      exempts the cemetery from the payment of federal income tax.
         43.  "Relocation" means the act of taking remains from the
      place of interment or the place where the remains are being held to
      another designated place.
         44.  "Remains" means the body of a deceased human or a body
      part, or limb that has been removed from a living human, including a
      body, body part, or limb in any stage of decomposition, or cremated
      remains.
         45.  "Scattering services provider" means a person in the
      business of scattering human cremated remains.
         46.  "Seller" means a person doing business within this state,
      including a person doing business within this state who advertises,
      sells, promotes, or offers to furnish memorials, memorialization,
      opening and closing services, scattering services, or interment
      rights, or a combination thereof, whether the transaction is
      completed or offered in person, through the mail, over the telephone,
      by the internet, or through any other means of commerce.
         47.  "Special care" means any care provided or to be provided
      that supplements or exceeds the requirements of this chapter in
      accordance with the specific directions of any donor of funds for
      such purposes.
         48.  "Undeveloped space" means a designated area or building
      within a cemetery that has been mapped and planned for future
      development but is not yet fully developed.
         49.  "Veterans cemetery" means a cemetery that is owned or
      operated by the state of Iowa or by the United States for the burial
      of veterans.  

         2005 Acts, ch 128, §7; 2006 Acts, ch 1117, §118; 2007 Acts, ch
      175, §34, 35; 2008 Acts, ch 1123, §54; 2009 Acts, ch 132, §5
         Referred to in § 37A.1