The Pursuit of Value

Local Value Over Corporations

Funeral costs have skyrocketed in recent years among some of the nations most trusted funeral service providers. While inflation accounts for some of these increases, a restructuring of the funeral market is having a more serious impact.

What's the difference between corporate & family owned?

In years past, families could count on their community funeral home to provide care, quality, and affordability. Today, those same funeral providers - even those with the same names and faces may no longer be the same business the family once knew. Behind the trusted face and the facility that the family has always used may be more than you know, offering less than you expect. It could be that the funeral service provider has lapsed into what one minister calls the big business greed of America's corporate takeover.

As cemeteries and funeral homes are being sold to large acquisition companies, many people say these conglomerates suddenly care more about the profitable bottom line than the welfare of the families they are serving. These corporations are driving up the costs of a funeral while offering what might be considered less and less service. Propelled by the whim of the stock market, these large corporations have profit needs that translate into pressure sales situations and varying interpretations of protective laws. These interpretations may be used to take advantage of families in a time of need.

Hidden costs and the exaggerated pricing by corporations have forced some families to pay as much as $14,000 for a funeral that would have been more fairly priced at $8,000. In reality, funerals can cost much less than that.

But that is not the last word.

Though big business is taking over many of the funeral homes, there are those who are refusing to give in. Many small, family-owned and independent funeral service providers are refusing offers of merger and buyout. These providers are actually reinventing the funeral service as a way to protect the community and the integrity of the profession of funeral providers.

By keeping prices lower and creating a fair-pricing policy, most of the smaller, family owned independent funeral homes ensure, for the survivors, that there are no hidden costs. All charges are in the open. Always available for questions, these funeral directors make it a point to not pressure the family into services and merchandise that they might not want. The funeral director is more of a consultant - a funeral expert who is guiding the family to facilitate funeral planning rather than acting as a salesperson. Usually, the cost of the funeral at an independent provider is substantially lower than the new firms that are not locally owned and have no investment in the local community or its people.

The word is spreading about the high costs of funeral service provided by big corporations versus those charged by smaller funeral service providers, and people are making a switch.

The independent funeral directors are seeing a rise in the number of funerals they are being asked to perform. People are value checking, and, more and more, they want to see their families served by a local family in their community. There is no doubt that the small funeral service providers are the underdogs up against the marketing machine of big corporations. But in a time of need, it is compassion and service that matter, faces and services that have been present in the past will continue to be present in the future.