Consumer Awareness

Funeral service has been under fire lately in the headlines. The Chicago cemetery incident where corpses were exhumed and allegedly disposed of in piles in an undeveloped section of the cemetery. In Falls Church, VA an allegedly disgruntled funeral home employee supposedly took pictures of mishandled bodies causing an onslaught of lawsuits.

Consumers are increasingly wary of funeral homes and cemeteries. Ever since the publication of the scathing book "The American Way of Death," consumer families have been more discriminating in their choices. The wary consumer is not a direct result of the above mentioned outrageous actions, but supposedly results from a more subtle form of abuse that relates to pricing and other things.

A recent article in Smart Money Magazine encourages consumer families to use extreme caution when selecting funeral and crematory services. While this article gives consumer families important criteria to consider when making funeral arrangements, it fails to detail the value of a funeral and the importance of end of life care. The primary focus of this article is to find ways for families to save money. The tone of the article, while not accusatory, is not flattering of funeral service. When funeral service is viewed as nothing but a commodity, it is easy to point a finger at the industry. But this view fails to account for the intangible value of the funeral experience. Weddings on average cost near to $30,000.00 in this country. People spend tens of thousands of dollars on hair care. People routinely spend several hundred dollars on shoes. Are wedding planners, dress designers, shoe companies, salons, etc. taking advantage of peoples' vanity?

In conclusion, while there are ways for families to save money on a funeral, the average profit margin for a funeral home is not excessive (around 10%). Most funeral directors and funeral home owners, while in business to make a profit, are also in the business to help people create a meaningful experience that honors lives and memories.

Read this article. I encourage your comments.