The odds are against consumers making wise, economical decisions when it comes to arranging funerals. Half the adult population has never planned a funeral and another 25 percent have done so only once. Add to that inexperience the whirligig of emotions, time constraints and the slew of on-the-spot decisions that have to be made and otherwise smart consumers become capable of gross overspending.
There is one, easy way to ensure you don’t overpay thousands of dollars for a funeral–comparison shop for a funeral home before you need one.
The first thing required of a survivor is to call a funeral home to remove the deceased from the place of death. If you don’t know whom to call, it could be the difference between paying $2,000 and $10,000 for the same funeral.
Despite the fact that all funeral homes offer the same services and sell comparable goods, they are not all alike. In a random sampling of 12 Chicago-area funeral providers, the basic service fee ranged from $295 to $2,000. Embalming ranged from $300 to $695, hearse rental from $275 to $500 and an evening funeral home visitation from $325 to $1,000.
Thanks to the Federal Trade Commission’s funeral rule, which was passed in 1984 and amended in 1994, comparison shopping is now possible. The rule requires that funeral homes keep a general price list (GPL) that must be given to anyone who requests it in person. If you telephone, they must give you price information from the GPL and their price lists for caskets and outer burial containers. This makes comparison shopping possible under time constraints.
Funeral homes have different pricing structures. Some have a low basic service fee, but increase the casket prices to make more profit. Others have high basic service fees, but lower prices on their caskets.
When comparing prices, pick only the goods and services you want and then compare the bottom line. For instance, if you know you want embalming, an evening visitation, a funeral ceremony the next morning and then a procession to the cemetery led by a hearse, get the prices for each of those items separately. Add all the merchandise you’ll buy from the funeral home–casket, burial vault, prayer cards, etc.–to the service charges to get a bottom line comparison.
But choosing a funeral home is not just about money. There can be differences in service quality when choosing a big or corporately owned funeral home and a small independent one.
“If you go to a (big) funeral home, the person you talked to on the phone was Joe. When you get there to make arrangements, you meet Sam, the day of the wake its Georgia and the day of the funeral it’s Frank. That’s how things slip through the cracks and families aren’t served well,” says Les Bale, owner of Christian Undertaker Services in Des Plaines and a former employee of a large U.S. funeral conglomerate.
A related issue to guard against is unexpectedly sharing the funeral home with other families.
“Let’s say you go to a large funeral home and they show you this beautiful, big parlor and you see this big parking lot and think, `This is great because there’s going to be hundreds of people here.’ Well, the night you arrive, you find out there are five other wakes (the same night as yours). If you have a late wake, starting at 5 p.m., and everybody else started at 3 p.m., you pull in and the parking lot is already full. When you go into your chapel, the room they showed you has been cut into three. It happens all the time,” says Bale.
Bale suggests adding specific information to the contract identifying exactly which chapels or parlors will be yours for the visitation and funeral ceremony.
– Service options. In a traditional funeral service, an evening visitation is held at the funeral home with an open or closed casket. Although no laws require embalming for public viewing, most funeral homes will not allow an open casket without embalming and other body preparation (cleaning, dressing, make-up, hairsetting). The next morning, a funeral ceremony is held at the funeral home or church followed by a procession to the cemetery.
With a direct (or immediate) burial, there is no visitation or ceremony. Instead, the funeral home transfers the deceased directly to the cemetery. No embalming is performed and only an alternative container is needed. Sometimes a graveside service is performed, which may or may not be included in the price.
With a graveside service, a short ceremony (usually closed casket) is held at the cemetery plot. There is no public viewing, though one could be held at the funeral home or elsewhere.
A memorial service is a ceremony without the deceased present. It can be done a day or a year after death and with or without a funeral director.
Consider these ways to save money:
– Get prices first. Long discussions about the deceased, your lifestyle or finances means you’ve invested time and emotion and become less likely to comparison shop. The funeral rule requires the GPL be given before arrangement discussions begin.
– Choose a discount funeral provider. They offer personalized ceremonies at lower prices with a variety of funeral location options, such as churches, historical homes, your own home, cemetery or retirement home chapels, or any location with special meaning. This is a nice option for consumers who feel funeral homes are depressing, whether it’s the mood or the 1960s color scheme. Some offer package prices that are cheaper than their GPL.
– Join a memorial society. These are associations of consumers who want a simple, less costly funeral. “We do the comparison shopping for them in advance,” says William Counts, president of the Chicago Memorial Association, which has 16,000 members. They currently have agreements with four Chicago-area funeral providers who give members predetermined discounts. A one-time membership fee ($20 to $45) gives you access to these discounts.
– Avoid embalming. The only reason to embalm is to have a public viewing (or to ship the deceased to another state). You can still have a closed-casket visitation and all the traditional accouterments, but you’ll save on two costs: embalming and other body preparation. Based on the funeral homes we visited, you’d save $400 to $1,090.
– Have the visitation and ceremony the same day. The evening visitation and funeral ceremony the next morning are two separate charges, so consider whether a full visitation is necessary.
“There are other options. If a person belonged to a church and you’re having the service there, you could have an hour visitation at the church (before the service),” says Richard Lamb of the Richard Lamb Funeral Service and Resource Center in Westmont.
Bale also recommends using your house of worship, but with the visitation and ceremony at night when everyone’s available to attend.
“Funeral homes are built to stagger their funeral services the next morning, because if you hold services at night in a funeral home, across the hall they’re having their visitation with 300 people. People are talking and it’s a great distraction,” says Bale.
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THURSDAY: Consumers have lots of options when choosing a casket.
