Federal law prohibits funeral homes from not accepting caskets from another supplier, or charging more for services if you bring your own. FTC... The Funeral Rule. There are lots of other restrictions on the industry as well (due to past misdeeds)
That link you sent says that they can charge more if you bring your own casket. One of the options explicitly offered there is for the funeral home to inform potential customers:
"Please note that a fee of (specify dollar amount) for the use of our basic services and overhead is included in the price of our caskets. This same fee shall be added to the total cost of your funeral arrangements if you provide the casket. Our services include (specify)."
It doesn't sound like you can negotiate a price including a casket, but later say you'll make your own casket, saving the bulk of the fee.
> "Please note that a fee of (specify dollar amount) for the use of our basic services and overhead is included in the price of our caskets. This same fee shall be added to the total cost of your funeral arrangements if you provide the casket."
Correct, and if your casket fee is $7000, then $6500 is "basic services". Casket is only $500.
So you say, hey I just want that mahogany and silk casket, no services. Then they say "Oh sorry, that's not a bundle we offer."
The caskets aren’t the only expensive part. Cemeteries often charge exorbitant amounts for headstones and plots. With headstones they lock you in with rules about bronze composition or charge installation fees for outside dealers while still making those dealers do the installation. My family owns a tombstone shop in a rural part of the country so I’ve seen a trick or two they use to keep folks out. Also I would feel remiss if I didn’t say if you order a tombstone online please pay someone to install it. You will most likely do it wrong and either you’ll get hurt or make the cemetery unsafe for others.
Wow, I love this. Easily overlooked market that is ripe for disruption.
It's not a word I use lightly in 2020. Everyone wants to disrupt some sector, but rarely realistic today in the mainstream segments. This is one of the more forgotten areas that have high margins and that take advantage of grieving by less scrupulous people.
My family has been through the ringer of upselling during a grieving process. Thankfully lot of the process was planned and paid for before the actual death while it is easier to have ones wits about them. We were largely immune, but they still tried.
It may be morbid, but if you can, plan for your or a loved one's passing in advance. Set it all up and the transition will be incredibly smooth allowing everyone to focus on the grieving instead of whether they should buy the marble or granite headstone.
>Still, it’s a tough business. Startups like HaloLife, Clarity and After I Go have all shut down. Most others merely offer memorial sites, or funeral home search engines.
One tough part about breaking into this market is that most of the customers are older people who are less comfortable with disruptive tech companies like this.
Yet retirement account startups are going gangbusters. They have similar challenges: older people have much more to invest and are hesitant to put it in newer tech.
Younger people are the target market for retirement accounts. Older people are either already drawing on it or close enough to retirement that it makes little sense to move things.
Agreed. Our father passed away unexpectedly, and when you’re being upsold on the container he’ll be buried in, next to his weeping beloved for 30 years, the entire industry just feels predatory
There's been a slow wave of real-world "X 2.0" over the last 10-15 years, e.g. top golf as a better driving range. I had the idea of "funeral home 2.0", but immediately dismissed it as half-baked, good only for a joke. I see I was wrong.
"That means Ever Loved’s biggest competitors, beyond the standard just accepting the local mortuary’s prices, are Google and Amazon. Often they surface the same prices as Ever Loved with comparable shipping, though Google could sometimes find a slight discount by buying straight from the manufacturer, while Amazon was missing some top brands. Costco and Walmart sell funeral products too."
If any one is interested, we bury our own in my family on our ancestral land. We use a plain wooden casket and dig the grave ourselves. If a backhoe from a friend is available it's a bonus.
I support the right to self bury, as most states have done for centuries.
There's a weird idea that government needs to get involved in this and protect funeral home gouging.
In any case total burial, funeral and wake cost can be around $800, if you want.
There was a huge argument about this on reddit not long ago. People were legitimately horrified at the idea of burying a pet in their yard, were convinced there were all sorts of diseases and miasmas that would occur if you did so and that the land would be permanently damaged/devalued, and that finding the bones would cause psychological trauma. Just mad. If dead animals were so dangerous we’d all be extinct long ago!
Honestly I don't understand this obsession people have with where their corpse goes.
I mean, you're dead. If you're buried, cremated, buried at sea or whatever it certainly doesn't matter to you, faith systems notwithstanding.
Perhaps your family will have some psychological attachment to being able to visit your grave but your body doesn't actually have to be there for any of this.
In some places space isn't an issue but in lots of places it is such that there are long waiting times, it's expensive, you only rent your grave spot or some combination of these.
I mean at some point doesn't the Earth become a giant graveyard, assuming death can outpace subduction.
Here's the areas where I have a real problem with the emotional attachment to your corpse: organ donation. Refusal to allow your dead body to literally save other people's lives is the very height of illogical selfishness.
Some religions even prohibit organ donation (or just make it practically impossible). I hope those who holds that view are consistent enough to refuse organ donations.
Handling the dead is probably one of humanity's oldest rites. It would make sense that people innately care about what they do with their passed loved ones even if it was even logical. It wouldn't be ridiculous to think that we handled our dead in a special way before we even had tools.
Humans have longstanding traditions of handling death and dead bodies with reverence and care.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize these things as “psychological attachments”.
Rituals, traditions and emotions are important for human beings, and appear across cultures for thousands of years and will continue to do so as long as humans are human.
We aren’t robots. We don’t do “logical” things al the time. And that’s for the good.
>We aren’t robots. We don’t do “logical” things al the time. And that’s for the good.
Some might consider spending considerable amounts of society's resources after people no longer alive at the expense of the living and future people to not be good.
There's paying respects to one's loved ones, but sometimes it seems to cross into ornate displays of consumption.
Many (most?) people aren’t altogether rational when they’re grieving the loss of a loved one and it’s made worse by the fact that we often make these decisions at the height of our grief, hours or days after that person has died.
Yeah and it's not like your body is going to stay buried there forever. A couple hundred years from now some historians will dig it up for science to see how people lived in the past.
This isn’t a sympathy grab, just a present anecdote. My wife died 27 hours ago after a long bout with cancer.
I’m going to pay probably upwards of $15k for her funeral because i didn’t plan ahead and there’s no time after the fact. I’m fortunately in a position to do so and am paying for what i want knowing that I’m being taken advantage of. Lesson learned.
If you are planning to go an alternate route i would strongly advise making complete arrangements while you are healthy. You're going to be dealing with heavily entrenched local practitioners and it could be an uphill battle.
I usually don’t like the sappy stuff online but I am very sorry for your loss. I absolutely cannot imagine the pain and hurt you must be experiencing. I hope you can find some kind of peace in the special bound you two share.
Pick two of the places listed and call them right now. There will almost certainly be an answering service (24hr isn't a gimmick, funeral homes collect bodies around the clock). Tell them you need a call back tomorrow to talk about alternate sourcing of caskets and vaults. Vaults may not be federally required but many cemeteries do require them. They can easily exceed the cost of the casket.
Optionally report your experience/results back here.
Second of all - why would the funeral be $15k? Are funeral services particularly expensive in the US? When my dad died few years ago we also didn't have anything planned, I think the total cost was about ~$1000, most of which was for transport of the body to the crematorium, the urn cost like $200 for a simple stainless steel one, and the funeral itself was "free" with the local church.
With a burial you also have the costs for the casket ($1500-$5000), the vault ($1200-$20K), the cemetary plot ($1200), embalming/transport/recordkeeping/etc ($500-$1500) and if you have a service then you may have some additional venue fees.
You almost never need embalming. Frequently funeral homes will fraudulently attempt to tell you otherwise.
Funeral homes are legally required to allow you to bring a coffin or alternate container that has been purchased from a third party (or built yourself).
Funeral homes must provide you with a general price list, containing the exact price of each item or service.
This is all great advice and I will likely do a better job of preparing for my own demise. Trying to deal with all of this from zero after a loved one dies is not a recipe for success.
I am so sorry for your loss. When my mother died recently I called the local funeral home, and spoke with some I graduated high school with. I wanted ONLY a cremation, no service. $35k. I almost accepted but called around. I ended up finding a “cremation society” that was a DBA of an existing funeral home that basically segmented the market. $3500. EXACT SAME SERVICE.
I almost beat the shit out of the hometown funeral director.
Ya emotions take a toll on the wallet at funerals.
Here's a cautionary tale if you're involved in estate planning ...
One relative of mine was not sentimental about death and had decades to plan for a cheap funeral. No visitors were expected aside from the wife and daughter. Cremation was fine with him, if no cheaper option was available. "Scatter the ashes on the lake."
What actually happened?
The widow blew so much on his funeral that she won't even admit the amount (think 5 figures.)
My family owned and ran a number of funeral homes for ALMOST 100 years. We sold JUST BEFORE the 100 year mark. We are glad we got out when we did, which was 10 years too late in my opinion.
The bottom dropped out of the industry, people don't want to pay for funerals anymore ( very rationally in my opinion ). My family's funeral home and a few other local funeral homes were fighting for scraps. Just like the local shoe store, the funeral home is going the way of the dinosaur. Things were getting desperate. The industry is stodgy and old. My father didn't get into the business to be a fucking overpriced casket salesman.
This seems like a great idea. Not even the funeral homes like having to gouge on caskets.
It is a weird industry and not one I am going to attempt to defend. I will say that almost every culture has some sort of burial ritual, and having elaborate funerals was a sign of respect and a very old practice.
I'm guessing it's a volume thing? The point of market entry for a casket is literally someones death. It's not you can run facebook ads to boost sales of caskets...
That doesn't tell the whole story, though. The cost of preparing and burying a body is, presumably, fixed in normal circumstances. Fancier caskets are a discretionary addition.
Unless the body prep/burial is offered as a free complimentary service when you buy a casket, then presumably the bill for those services covers their cost.
Perhaps competition has set an expectation of a certain price for the service aspect, which is a loss-leader, and then providers make up the loss on casket sales.
If the funeral homes were selling only a casket, I could see it being a volume thing. But I'd expect the fixed costs of the business to be covered by the service fee, hence my question.
I learned last week when a family member died how important it is to educate yourself on this subject. It was a relatively sudden death and that family member had only verbally told someone how he wanted to be buried but was somewhat vague about even that. The night he died the undertaker asked us to sign for having him embalmed. The next day, when the subject of having him cremated came up at the funeral home someone asked, “But didn’t we have him embalmed?” Had we chosen cremation we would have wasted nearly $900 in embalming. Even then, I question whether it was a necessary expense given it’s not legally required in this jurisdiction.
Ultimately we went with the more expensive option of casket burial because we truly felt that’s what this family member wanted. But I do find it interesting that the night he died, the undertaker all but forced us to sign for embalming. I wonder how often that one act pushes families towards a more expensive option? In our case, the total cost was $10,000 with one of the cheapest caskets they offered and that doesn’t include plot or grave marker.
63 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadhttps://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...
"Please note that a fee of (specify dollar amount) for the use of our basic services and overhead is included in the price of our caskets. This same fee shall be added to the total cost of your funeral arrangements if you provide the casket. Our services include (specify)."
It doesn't sound like you can negotiate a price including a casket, but later say you'll make your own casket, saving the bulk of the fee.
Correct, and if your casket fee is $7000, then $6500 is "basic services". Casket is only $500.
So you say, hey I just want that mahogany and silk casket, no services. Then they say "Oh sorry, that's not a bundle we offer."
It's not a word I use lightly in 2020. Everyone wants to disrupt some sector, but rarely realistic today in the mainstream segments. This is one of the more forgotten areas that have high margins and that take advantage of grieving by less scrupulous people.
My family has been through the ringer of upselling during a grieving process. Thankfully lot of the process was planned and paid for before the actual death while it is easier to have ones wits about them. We were largely immune, but they still tried.
It may be morbid, but if you can, plan for your or a loved one's passing in advance. Set it all up and the transition will be incredibly smooth allowing everyone to focus on the grieving instead of whether they should buy the marble or granite headstone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Service_Corporation_Internatio...
https://www.ogr.org/
How do you figure? The article says this:
>Still, it’s a tough business. Startups like HaloLife, Clarity and After I Go have all shut down. Most others merely offer memorial sites, or funeral home search engines.
So, it really just seems like a marketing issue.
I support the right to self bury, as most states have done for centuries.
There's a weird idea that government needs to get involved in this and protect funeral home gouging.
In any case total burial, funeral and wake cost can be around $800, if you want.
My dad wants to get turned into a diamond [2]. I’m in charge of that.
[1] https://www.cnn.com/2017/05/03/world/eco-solutions-capsula-m...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2014/01/19/263128098/swiss-company-compr...
I mean, you're dead. If you're buried, cremated, buried at sea or whatever it certainly doesn't matter to you, faith systems notwithstanding.
Perhaps your family will have some psychological attachment to being able to visit your grave but your body doesn't actually have to be there for any of this.
In some places space isn't an issue but in lots of places it is such that there are long waiting times, it's expensive, you only rent your grave spot or some combination of these.
I mean at some point doesn't the Earth become a giant graveyard, assuming death can outpace subduction.
Here's the areas where I have a real problem with the emotional attachment to your corpse: organ donation. Refusal to allow your dead body to literally save other people's lives is the very height of illogical selfishness.
Some religions even prohibit organ donation (or just make it practically impossible). I hope those who holds that view are consistent enough to refuse organ donations.
I don’t think it’s fair to characterize these things as “psychological attachments”.
Rituals, traditions and emotions are important for human beings, and appear across cultures for thousands of years and will continue to do so as long as humans are human.
We aren’t robots. We don’t do “logical” things al the time. And that’s for the good.
Some might consider spending considerable amounts of society's resources after people no longer alive at the expense of the living and future people to not be good.
There's paying respects to one's loved ones, but sometimes it seems to cross into ornate displays of consumption.
I’m going to pay probably upwards of $15k for her funeral because i didn’t plan ahead and there’s no time after the fact. I’m fortunately in a position to do so and am paying for what i want knowing that I’m being taken advantage of. Lesson learned.
If you are planning to go an alternate route i would strongly advise making complete arrangements while you are healthy. You're going to be dealing with heavily entrenched local practitioners and it could be an uphill battle.
Open this link in a new tab right now - https://www.google.com/search?q=funeral+homes+near+me
Pick two of the places listed and call them right now. There will almost certainly be an answering service (24hr isn't a gimmick, funeral homes collect bodies around the clock). Tell them you need a call back tomorrow to talk about alternate sourcing of caskets and vaults. Vaults may not be federally required but many cemeteries do require them. They can easily exceed the cost of the casket.
Optionally report your experience/results back here.
Second of all - why would the funeral be $15k? Are funeral services particularly expensive in the US? When my dad died few years ago we also didn't have anything planned, I think the total cost was about ~$1000, most of which was for transport of the body to the crematorium, the urn cost like $200 for a simple stainless steel one, and the funeral itself was "free" with the local church.
Funeral homes are legally required to allow you to bring a coffin or alternate container that has been purchased from a third party (or built yourself).
Funeral homes must provide you with a general price list, containing the exact price of each item or service.
See:
- https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0300-ftc-funeral-rule
- https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...
I almost beat the shit out of the hometown funeral director.
Here's a cautionary tale if you're involved in estate planning ...
One relative of mine was not sentimental about death and had decades to plan for a cheap funeral. No visitors were expected aside from the wife and daughter. Cremation was fine with him, if no cheaper option was available. "Scatter the ashes on the lake."
What actually happened?
The widow blew so much on his funeral that she won't even admit the amount (think 5 figures.)
"Well we can afford it."
The bottom dropped out of the industry, people don't want to pay for funerals anymore ( very rationally in my opinion ). My family's funeral home and a few other local funeral homes were fighting for scraps. Just like the local shoe store, the funeral home is going the way of the dinosaur. Things were getting desperate. The industry is stodgy and old. My father didn't get into the business to be a fucking overpriced casket salesman.
This seems like a great idea. Not even the funeral homes like having to gouge on caskets.
It is a weird industry and not one I am going to attempt to defend. I will say that almost every culture has some sort of burial ritual, and having elaborate funerals was a sign of respect and a very old practice.
Unless the body prep/burial is offered as a free complimentary service when you buy a casket, then presumably the bill for those services covers their cost.
Perhaps competition has set an expectation of a certain price for the service aspect, which is a loss-leader, and then providers make up the loss on casket sales.
If the funeral homes were selling only a casket, I could see it being a volume thing. But I'd expect the fixed costs of the business to be covered by the service fee, hence my question.
Ultimately we went with the more expensive option of casket burial because we truly felt that’s what this family member wanted. But I do find it interesting that the night he died, the undertaker all but forced us to sign for embalming. I wonder how often that one act pushes families towards a more expensive option? In our case, the total cost was $10,000 with one of the cheapest caskets they offered and that doesn’t include plot or grave marker.