For some reason, the UK’s largest provider of funeral related services prefers not to list their prices online.
Happily, we have no such reservations about letting the public know the current cost of a funeral from a Dignity PLC owned business.
(There are currently in the region of 780 funeral director businesses in the UK that belong to Dignity PLC, all of which trade under the name of their former owners.
Have a look here to see which undertakers near you are owned by Dignity. Put your postcode in and see which names come up. You may well be surprised.)
Anyway, back to the prices. To save you squinting at the small print in the pics below, as a quick reckoner, if you pick a Dignity funeral director to be your undertaker, agree to their recommendation of embalming for ‘peace of mind’, select a cardboard coffin and require just a hearse to go direct to the crematorium or cemetery, your bill will be £4,375.00.
Just for clarity, this figure does not include the cremation or burial fees, you’ll need to add another £999.00 just for the cremation fee at many of the Dignity owned crematoria.
Nor does this figure cover the cost for an officiant at the ceremony. Nor the doctors’ fees required for a cremation in England and Wales. Nor flowers, orders of service, a funeral tea, or an urn for the ashes.
An at a glance breakdown of the main constituents of that £4,375.00 (all capitals letters not our own) is below. We haven’t bothered to type up all the details, but if you zoom in on the images below, you will see just what you get for your money under each category. (We quite liked the sound of ‘...full access to our own 24 hour Client Service Centre’ which sounds like a description of a VIP lounge at an airport, although in fact it’s a fancy name for the after hours call centre where phone calls get answered when the staff have all gone home.)
Our Service to You: £1,405.00
Our Service to the Person who has Died: £ 950.00
Our Embalming Service: £ 75.00
‘We will ensure every available care is taken to delay the natural processes that occur after death. However, as members of the National Association of Funeral Directors, we recommend the peace of mind that embalming brings. You will be advised on this and we will require your consent.’
Your Appointed Funeral Director: £ 665.00
Our Hearses: £ 620.00 (each)
Our Limousines £ 175.00 (each)
Our Range of Coffins and Caskets – examples:
Veneer MDF coffin: £ 440.00
Cardboard coffin: £ 660.00
Willow coffin: £1015.00
Source: Dignity Funerals Ltd Price List 3rd October 2016.
You could of course opt for the Dignity Simple Funeral, which offers limited access to their full range of services, no choice of coffin and limited choice on the date and time of the funeral. The Dignity Simple Funeral costs £2,520 and must be paid in full (along with all cremation or burial costs) 48 hours in advance of the funeral date.
Chief Executive of Dignity PLC, Mike McCollum, was among the delegates attending the national conference on funeral poverty held in Edinburgh this week.
We weren’t on the same table as him, so are not able to relay what contribution or comment he had on the subject.
