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Funeral Price Survey — 2011
Comments on survey results
Federal legislation requires a funeral home to provide a copy of its General Price List (GPL) on request. The list must describe in specified ways the services and merchandise offered for sale, and it must be constructed so that a customer can order only what he or she wants. A funeral home’s casket price list, if separate from its GPL, must be made available in the same manner as the GPL. These practices are prescribed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in its “Funeral Rule.” The State of New York has similar requirements, which leads to repetitious disclosure statements and other redundancies, as well as ambiguity and misunderstanding. A typical GPL in New York State will label some statements “FTC” to designate wording dictated by federal regulations. We believe it is time for the New York State legislature to eliminate those of its funeral regulations that duplicate the intent of federal regulations. In our survey of funeral homes in the southern Finger Lakes region and adjacent Southern Tier communities, we found wide variations in the prices of particular services, and these variations are reflected in the full-service funeral price index we have constructed. Index values range from $3,130 to $6,845 for the same set of services (without regard to merchandise). The lowest prices were found in Elmira, Genoa, Groton, and Ithaca; the highest in Elmira, Homer, and Ithaca. For full-service funerals, the most expensive service item is the non-declinable “Basic Arrangements” fee to cover overhead and similar expenses that a funeral home is allowed to add to all other costs of service and merchandise ordered by a customer. Among the 38 funeral homes surveyed, this charge ranged from $900 to $3,195. As noted in our Table 1, the Basic Arrangements charge is already included in the prices of the four so-called “Alternative Services”: direct cremation, direct burial, transferring or forwarding a body to another funeral home, and receiving a body from another funeral home. We list two prices for each of the first two of these Alternative Services – direct cremation and immediate burial. The higher price applies if the funeral home furnishes the container, which is usually an “alternative container” made of cardboard or other wood fiber. (An alternative container may be as simple as an unlined corrugated cardboard box. For more information about alternative containers, see Compliance of General Price Lists with the FTC Funeral Rule.) The price in parentheses applies when a customer supplies the container. Prices of the least expensive caskets and alternative containers ranged from $15 and $295 to $250 and $1,998, respectively. If you are interested in a traditional burial, you should consider moderately priced caskets of higher quality or those made of different materials than the least expensive ones. The casket price list at a funeral home may include both caskets on display and others that are illustrated and described in a catalog. Some funeral homes provide casket illustrations, descriptions, and prices at their websites. Crematory charges, typically about $360 in 2011, are added to the price of the cremation service provided by a funeral home except where the price listed in our table is followed by an asterisk. Similarly, cemetery charges are added to the price of a funeral home’s burial service. Most funeral homes do not list the price of donating a body to a medical institution. The cost of this service can have up to three price elements: Basic Arrangements, acquiring the body (that is, local transfer of the remains from the place of death to the funeral home), and a mileage charge. As a result, the cost to a donor’s family can be as great as that for a traditional funeral. However, some medical institutions and organizations provide free pickup and transportation, so donors’ families can be spared these costs. “Green burial,” also known as natural burial, is available within the service region of the FCA of the Finger Lakes. Costs of this option can be lower than those of a conventional burial because burial containers are simple, and neither grave liners nor elaborate monuments are used. The prices charged by funeral homes for “green” burial service are otherwise the same as for conventional service. You can control cost by prudent shopping based on the prices displayed in our survey tables. To determine the cost of services and merchandise at any one of the funeral homes in our survey, add the prices of desired items as listed on the GPL and on the casket price list if applicable. You can also save money by providing a burial container purchased elsewhere. Remember that the full-service funeral price index in our tables does NOT include the cost of a burial container or vault (that is, a grave liner or outer burial container). Nor does it include cemetery costs or incidental costs such as those for flowers, a guest book, or an obituary.
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