funeral cost – Page 10 – The Good Funeral Guide

A Good Send Off

21 June 2010

Charles

3 Comments

Categories: alternative funerals, celebrants, cemeteries, ceremony, cremation, funeral cost, funeral customs, funeral reformers, green funeral, natural burial

A Good Send Off was the title of this year’s Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) annual conference. Well, part of the title – the snappy part. In full it read: A Good Send Off: Local, Regional & National Variations in how the British Dispose of their Dead. It took place last Saturday in Bath.

For the GFG this was a great day out. For £25 we got a full day of talks about all things funereal with a very good lunch thrown in. The turnout will have been gratifying for the organisers, I hope. Their warm welcome, typical of CDAS events, was appreciated. If you’re not an academic, and you know you do not have the cranial contents to be one, it’s reassuring to be put at your ease.

Academics sometimes speak a variant or dialect of English which makes them incomprehensible to ornery folk. There was little of that. Cleverness levels at these things can sometimes climb so steeply that we ornery folk fall off the back of what they’re talking about. There was little of that, either, but you’ve got to expect a bit; these are mental weightlifters after all. As for the papers, there are normally a few which unpack research into fields so rarefied that you can only wonder what on earth led the researcher there. A sprightly 20 mins on, say, the iconography stamped into funeral biscuits in a remote Yorkshire village, 1807-1809. Not the sort of stuff us non-acs can take away and use. There was none such. I regretted that.

There were too many highlights to describe in a blog post and too many talks to attend: so many that they ran alongside each other (in different rooms, of course). Let’s just focus on the groundbreakers: the natural buriers and the forward-looking undertakers.

Simon Smith and Jane Morrell from green fuse contemporary funerals do things differently from most funeral directors and they get different results. Okay, so they work out of Totnes; they wouldn’t be doing quite so many funerals like this in a working class industrial town like Redditch. But they offered persuasive evidence that their way of working has broad appeal to the sort of people – hands-on, self-reliant, not deferential to convention, not necessarily educated middle-class – who do not want to be relieved of the duty of caring for their dead and creating their farewell ceremony; rather, they want to play whatever part they feel they can. Inasmuch as they have little idea what they can do and whether they’ll be up to it, their exploration of the options under the guidance of the funeral director is vitally important. In the words of Simon and Jane, “This demands the funeral director actively listen to the client in order to understand the values and reality of the family and the community, to pick up on their needs and desires.”

Together with their clients, Simon and Jane collaboratively create send-offs which are demonstrably transformative of grief; send-offs which yield some truly remarkable statistics:

Of funerals arranged for people over 70 years old, 69% are cremations compared with a national average of 72%. But for those under 70, the figure drops (alarmingly if you are a cremationist) to just 35%
Most green fuse funerals are conventionally religious or broadly spiritual, and here comes the next astonishing statistic: of the over-70s, 28% opt for a non-religious or atheist ceremony but in the under-70s that figure plummets to just 9%.
In both groups only 7% opted for professional bearers.
Among under-70s, 42% opt for a trad hearse and among over-70s, 55% opt for a trad hearse. I thought the figures would have been lower.

For me, Simon and Jane made their case: if funeral directors interview their clients carefully and collaboratively and have a discussion with them which is values-based, not merchandise-based, they find themselves not only doing things markedly differently but also in a way which produces far higher levels of satisfaction. These are real funerals which make a real difference to people. But they take much, much longer to arrange and to perform. Can they pay for themselves?

There were two excellent papers on natural burial. One was given by Melissa Stewart of Native Woodland (featuring James Leedam on slide projector). She took us through the many sorts of natural burial ground we now find in different parts of the country according to topography and population density. We tend to think of natural burial as generic, but it most certainly is not. Some of these grounds are surrounded by miles and miles of open country; others by housing estates and busy roads. In aspect, they span the sublime and the _______________ (use whichever word you think applies.) Thank you, Melissa, for a brilliant neologism: treestone, n — a tree planted at the head of a grave.

Another paper, by Jenny Hockey and Trish Green of Sheffield University, looked at, among other things, how some people who opt for natural burial do so out of sense of rootedness in the place they have chosen to live, and as a demonstration of that. Out of this impulse, and because their identification with a particular place is such a strong descriptor of their identity, comes a sense of continuing existence after death, a sort of immortality, as if the self remained embodied, sleeping on in the evergreen, forever a part of the place. Thus is a natural burial ground a sort of dormitory of the dead: “He’s here.” This is in complete contrast with a local authority cemetery, where the dead go to be just that: dead. Any sense of their continuing existence always locates them somewhere else.

Now, I’m not at all sure that that is what they were saying, but it’s the idea I came away with. And it’s easily tested. I would hazard a guess that when the living talk to the dead in a conventional cemetery, their words fly up. But when they talk to their dead in a natural burial ground their words fly down. Anything in it? I really don’t know. Probably complete nonsense.

At the plenary session at the end there was a lively discussion of taste in memorialisation items and the legitimacy of grave visitors imposing their own taste by clearing away stuff left by others. The natural buriers came in for some unmerited stick here (and I apologise for the way I fluffed my own response). The whole point about true natural burial is that there is consensus about how the ground should look: people have made an informed choice and bought into the unspoilt, ground-zero concept. Grave visitors have both a right and a duty to keep it looking as it ought.

It was great fun, at Bath, to meet so many friends and to make new ones, and to come away with one’s head a-buzz with ideas. This was a typically inclusive event, and I would urge anyone with an interest in funerals, especially funeral directors and celebrants, to go to the next one. There weren’t nearly enough of you. I can understand any misgivings you may have. Well, these academics may be terrifically brainy, but they’re also very kind, human, hospitable and even interested in what we have to say.

Why, when the day was over and I discovered to my dismay that I had left my bank card at home, who was it who galloped to my rescue with a pound coin for the parking meter? None other than Professor Walter himself. Thank you, Tony. It was a lifesaver!

Sods’ law

16 June 2010

Charles

3 Comments

Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral cost, National Association of Funeral Directors, SAIF, scandals

The funeral industry is right to be wary of those who claim to scrutinise it on behalf of consumers. After all, Jessica Mitford did much injury to the American funeral industry with an exposé which held it up to ridicule and focussed on price at the expense of value, and so was actually of very little use to consumers.

Jessica and her muckraking merrymaking aside, the UK funeral industry was always going to find scrutiny hard to bear both because it is unaccustomed to being held to account and because parts of it suffer from a degree of complacency, self-importance, even, induced by customers who come through its doors, hold their hands up and say, “Tell me what to do.”

The Good Funeral Guide is guilty of having had some fun at the expense of the funeral industry. Any consumer advocate is going to be adversarial at times, and resolutely non-aligned, of course. And in the interests of readability, this blog aims not to be solemn but challenging, thought-provoking, tail-tweaking, humorous, deadly serious, thoughtful, silly and sometimes downright maverick. Entertaining. If it’s earnest you want, join me at the University of Bath on Saturday for the CDAS annual conference, entitled A Good Send-off. It won’t all be dull. Melissa Stewart of Native Woodland is speaking.

The approach I have taken to the funeral industry is to hold it to account from time to time and, where possible, engage in constructive dialogue. Where the trade bodies, NAFD and SAIF are concerned there has been very little of that. Emails are not replied to or even acknowledged. If this makes me, sometimes, waspish, who’s not to understand?

Yet my main thrust has been not to expose rottenness but to spotlight what’s best in funeral service, to sing the praises of the unsung heroes – to show consumers the way to the good guys so that they needn’t worry themselves about the bad and the awful. Those good guys are invariably independents.

For this reason I tend to be slow to respond to beastly goings on. That’s why, in the matter of Co-operative Funeralcare’s response to the SAIF IPSOS-Mori price comparison survey, I have been slow out of the blocks. I don’t get a bang out of giving Funeralcare a drubbing once in a while. It is a wearisome duty conducted on behalf of funeral consumers, socialism and the ideals of the Rochdale Pioneers.

But this latest business is as bad as it gets.

Even though the SAIF price comparison survey would seem to be 100% quantitative and 0% qualitative, even though it talks about what consumers need to know, SAIF has, along with at least three of its members, in the words of SAIF ceo Alun Tucker, “been issued with papers from the legal team representing The Co-operative Funeralcare. The documents relate to the wording in various items of SAIF literature and the content of some advertisements that members have placed in their local press. I will not comment further at this stage, as we have placed the papers in the hands of solicitors for a response to Funeralcare’s claims.”

I think we all know exactly what we reckon to that. There is no reason to overexcite Co-op lawyers by putting our thoughts into words. Justice is only very, very distantly related to the Law. They hardly ever see each other, never at funerals.

There’s worse. There are allegations from others in the industry that SAIF-affiliated suppliers of merchandise and services are coming under pressure to think carefully about who they do business with – a threat to the viability of SAIF as a trade body. Who is applying this pressure? And, as a writer to SAIF Insight, the trade body’s magazine, says, what if all this were to come into the public domain?

Well, it is in the public domain. And we reckon we know what it’s all about, don’t we? The funeral industry is not a hermetically sealed world like the illegal drugs trade. This is a matter which belongs to wider society; it needs to be aired; it is of material interest to all funeral consumers, the very people the funeral industry and the Good Funeral Guide together seek to serve.

It is because we share this common purpose that I believe we should talk to each other. We won’t always agree, but that’s not the point. So I hope I shall hear soon from spokespeople at SAIF and the NAFD.

My sincere thanks to all those of you who have contacted me with information and told me what you think. Where do we go from here?

If you want to leave a comment, please be very, very careful how you word it.

Co-op lawyers please note: I signed my house over to my wife when I cancelled my smile bank account. I am penniless. (It’s true, too, but I’m throwing it in also for readers who are members of the NAFD. They’ll see the joke.)

Vile and baseless rumours

15 June 2010

Charles

No comments

Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral cost, National Association of Funeral Directors, SAIF

Yesterday I reported that rumours are swirling in Funeralland concerning the response of the People’s Undertaker to the release of the IPSOS-Mori funeral price comparison commissioned by the independent funeral directors’ trade association, SAIF — a survey which revealed Co-op charges to be, on average, higher than those in the independent sector despite its enjoyment of significant economies of scale.

I thank all those of you who have contacted me, confidentially, to talk about these rumours.

I am pleased and relieved to be able to report that these rumours are indeed baseless. There have been no instances of heavy-handedness concerning industry suppliers Wilcox Limousines, Lyn Oakes the clothing people, or a leading and excellent firm of funeral directors.

Just as I thought!

No official comment yet from SAIF or the NAFD. But I watch my stats. I know who’s looking. I said to them, when I emailed them yesterday, that I am only doing what any conscientious consumer advocate would do. I’d far rather sing the praises of the best, that’s where my emphasis lies, but I have to maintain an overview.

Only in America?

14 June 2010

Charles

No comments

Categories: funeral cost

Scheduling a funeral for a loved one is not easy, especially when you can’t afford one.

That’s the situation the family of Clementina Michelle Hagin, 34, found themselves in after her death Thursday.

On Saturday afternoon, Lynn Sims, Hagin’s pastor at Life Changing Outreach Ministries off Martintown Road in North Augusta, organized a car wash in an attempt to raise the $6,000 needed for the ceremony.

While Sims and the family try to raise the money, Hagin’s body is being kept at C.A. Reid Sr. Memorial Funeral Home, owned by Charlie Reid.

“He wants us to let him know how much money we have on Monday,” Sims said. “She doesn’t have a policy, so we’re trying to do whatever we can to give him what he needs so that we can do something.”

Hagin’s three children and a number of her fellow church members were able to use the Pizza Hut parking lot, just outside the ministry’s front door, for their car wash.

Even as the temperature approached 100 degrees, the group continued to work, but it collected only $847 on Saturday.

Read the rest of the story here.

Anything in it?

14 June 2010

Charles

2 Comments

Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, funeral cost, SAIF

Perhaps the most important recent consumer information to reach the public domain was the SAIF IPSOS-Mori price comparison survey (26 Feb 2010) which showed that “Average funeral directors’ charges are highest for Dignity funeral directors and lowest for independents. Co-operative Funeralcare branches fall between the two.”

SAIF wouldn’t share these results with the Good Funeral Guide on the grounds, that, though we make a better case for independent funeral directors than most, we were adjudged not to be fit and proper recipients. Good news will out, though. We soon had that clean linen being aired on this website. Since then, SAIF has quietly aired it on its own.

Why the shhh!? I’d have thought that SAIF members pay their subs to have this sort of information trumpeted at full blast. As we go into an era of cuts lots more people are going to be looking for a cheap funeral. Every financial journalist in the country would have picked up on a brightly-worded press release.

One possible reason has reached me in the form of swirling rumours. I say rumours and, for the benefit of Co-op Funeralcare’s lawyers, I repeat: rumours. Allegations. Baseless, doubtless.

These rumours centre on the response of Co-op Funeralcare to the release of the SAIF survey. They are ugly rumours.

Does anyone have any solid, verifiable information they’d like to share?

Don’t leave an anonymous comment below. I couldn’t trace you through it, but others, possibly, could. Contact me direct: Charles@goodfuneralguide.co.uk. Arrange to phone, if you prefer. You will just have to trust that I shall treat anything you say in strictest confidence.

It would be good to stand these rumours up or knock them down, as they deserve.

Chasing the money

14 June 2010

Charles

1 Comment

Categories: funeral cost, National Association of Funeral Directors, Probate, SAIF

Sometimes a google goosechase can take you to interesting places.

Where did I start? I wanted to find out the current average price of a simple funeral. I found a Guardian article which concluded with a tranche of good advice from Anne Wadey, author of the Which? publication What To Do When Someone Dies. Which?, we remind ourselves, is a consumer advocacy charity. At the foot of the article was a recommendation (not by Anne Wadey, oh no) of probate specialists Final Duties. Heard of them? You have now. Read this article about them in the Guardian here.

The NAFD has its own pet probate specialist umbrella-ed under its Bereavement Advice Centre (BAC), a not-for-profit organisation. Spin Profiles has this to say about the BAC:

The Bereavement Advice Centre claims to have been welcomed by a variety of organisations from health, funeral, legal and advice sectors and their policy committee oversees development of the service and includes clergy, hospital bereavement support, legal, care home, medical, funeral undertaking and local government representations.

The BAC publishes a leaflet called “What to do when someone dies“, which is widely available in registrars, where people go to register a death, and in some hospitals. The leaflet publicises a helpline which has been accused by solicitors of promoting BAC’s commercial owner ITC Legal Services. An article in the Law Society Gazette in June 2009 drew attention to the “financial links” between the Bereavement Advice Centre and ITC Legal Services. The article says the link has “come under fire from solicitors”. Patricia Wass, a partner at Plymouth firm Foot Anstey and chairwoman of the Law Society’s wills and equity committee, is quoted in the article as saying that she is concerned that registrars ‘up and down the country’ are giving BAC’s leaflets to people when they report a death. This might imply that local authorities sanction BAC’s promotion of ITC’s commercial interests.

Over at Thisismoney, here’s what they have to say on the matter: Registrars, GPs, hospitals, churches and funeral homes are all handing out leaflets advertising the Bereavement Advice Centre. The official-looking document appears to be for a free independent advice service. But those that call a free helpline or visit the website are pointed towards ITC Legal Services, one of the biggest probate providers in the UK. ITC’s fees can be much greater than similar services offered by local solicitors. In one case, a reader was quoted £2,400 by ITC, almost three times more than a local solicitor … Despite claiming its fees are competitive with solicitors and can be half that charged by banks, ITC’s charges can be hugely more expensive than services offered by trained lawyers. This is because the firm charges a percentage of the estate, unlike solicitors, which tend to charge an hourly rate. In Manchester, this ranges between £140 and £250. ITC charges from 2.5% for estates worth between £5,000 and £19,999 to 1% for estates worth £230,000 and above … Stewart Acton, 59, was given one of these leaflets when he went to Sale town Hall to register the death of his mother, Sheila. Thinking it was an official leaflet, he phoned the Bereavement advice centre. Days later, he was visited by a woman from ITC. Mr Acton says: ‘The girl said the firm would take care of everything and that if I went to a solicitor it would take a long time and the costs could be astronomical.’ The charge for ITC’s services was £2,400. Mr Acton got in touch with his neighbour, a solicitor, who said he would charge just £850 for the same service. He says: ‘When your mum dies, your head is in the clouds and you just go with it. These people are just coffin-chasers.’

The Head of the Bereavement Advice Centre is… Anne Wadey. The author of the latest edition of What To Do When Someone Dies would hardly seem to have impeccable non-aligned credentials.

I learnt something else interesting from Spin Profiles: In 2002 Helen Parker, editor of Which, commented: “We want to see all funeral directors in the UK signed up to a standard code of practice. The code should be monitored and enforced by an independent body.” In response, Alan Slater, ceo of the NAFD gave this assurance: “We are currently mid-way through the process of improving our code … Once finalised, the new code will be sent to the OFT.” The NAFD’s Slater said this in 2002. But as of February 2009, the NAFD code of practice has not been approved by OFT. In fact, none of the funeral trades associations’ codes of practice have been approved by OFT. Approval would mean that the codes of practice would be blessed by the Consumer Codes Approval Scheme, offering a much greater degree of assurance to consumers.

In search of better news I googled ITC Legal Services. Has it cleaned its act up? Oh dear, it hasn’t. Here’s a depressing story dated 9 June 2010.

To the consumer, this all looks very murky. I must now fire off emails to the NAFD and SAIF and see what they have to say for themselves.

PS Who is the informant behind these Spin Profiles, I hear you ask? It is none other than the indefatigable Teresa Evans. Hats off, please!

Maggie Brinklow on what makes a good funeral

9 June 2010

Charles

5 Comments

Categories: alternative funerals, ceremony, DIY funeral, Formality vs informality, funeral cost, funeral customs, funeral trends, home funerals

Everyone agrees that choice in funeral arrangements is a good thing. Even the UK’s most Jurassic undertakers are nodding their heads fervently on this one. They’ve come round at last (sort of). It’s the mantra in Funeralland: Personalisation x 3 (I can’t be bothered to type it).

There’s money in it, of course. Because personalisation (x3) can merely = accessorisation (x3). Instead of a bog standard box, why not this lovely one here, look, emblazoned with bluebells and kingfishers and a steam locomotive at 3x the price? There are lots of ways to personalise. We know what they are. They overlook making your own box, a very useful exercise in grief therapy. They overlook picking flowers from your own garden, not even tying them at the stems, and taking them home after, if it was a cremation.

There’s pressure in personalisation. The media love to pick up on wacky funerals, outrageous dress codes, iconoclastic songs. Trad is so last century, so gloomy, so boring.

This exerts an expectation. “So what are we going to do? He loved his veg, especially his leeks, so, er, let’s tell everyone to dress up as a leek??” There’s a tyranny taking hold.

There’s personalisation (x3) and there’s costly and unnecessary distraction (x3).

So it’s really good, this morning, to publish this post (the first of many, I hope) by Maggie Brinklow, a celebrant, member of the Association of Independent Celebrants (AOIC), who is keen to broaden her skills to include body preparation. She hopes shortly to do a course with the distinguished Mark Elliott, one of the best in his field, and I hope she’ll tell us all about that. Maggie says “I am passionate about putting the funeral back in the hands of the family.” She reminds us that trad has legs.

What makes a good funeral?

I’ve just got back home from a funeral. Nothing unusual in that – I’ve been to so many family funerals that I’ve lost count. I’ve also acted as a celebrant at quite a few as well, so what made this one any different? Well, this is the first funeral where I acted as the Funeral Arranger, working on behalf of a small independent company. It wasn’t anything special, a church service followed by interment in the local cemetery – a hearse and limo, the usual flowers and mourning dress and then back to the house for the ‘do’.

So, why am I writing about it? Well, it got me thinking. What makes a good funeral? Is it the gold coffin with stretch hummers and 300 mourners or, is it the small intimate gathering, the cardboard coffin pulled on a hand bier while the children sing, before being laid to rest at a woodland site? For me, it’s both and neither of these options – personally I’d like people to take up the alternative ideas, but it’s not my decision. I offered the family the different venue, transport, coffin etc etc but, in the end, the traditional route was the right one for them.

Like I said, today’s funeral was nothing unusual, but it was what the family wanted, and really, isn’t that what it’s all about?

Dig those stats

17 May 2010

Charles

1 Comment

Categories: Dignity, funeral cost

I received this interesting insight into Dignity’s profitability the other day from a good friend of the GFG, Andrew Plume.

I was mulling over some Dignity stats the other day.

Much is made of 65,000 funerals having been carried out for year ending December 2009. Given that they merrily declare having “546 funeral locations” in the UK, are those figures really that strong?

This equates to 119 funerals per branch per year. That’s hardly impressive and looking at the name firms that they trade under, some of whom were fantastic names when long ago independent, I would personally be very unhappy with these results. As I’ve said before, some of these branches simply have to be considerably under performing. Dignity reckon that their market share last year was 11.8%. Is that really such a good ‘return’?

Compare this to at least two independent family firms that I know well. They both own their own buildings and each only trade from one location. Both are on course for 550-600 funerals this year, possibly more. Each of them have minimal advertising costs and no vast amounts of area management to pay for, which is the case with Dignity. Both of these firms are cheaper than Dignity.

Not difficult to draw conclusions on profitability?

Hmnn…

Thanks, Andrew!

Nick Gandon on funeral costs

14 May 2010

Charles

No comments

Categories: direct cremation, funeral cost

Nick Gandon operates the UK’s first and, so far as I know, only dedicated direct cremation service. Here is the comment he left on this post from a few days ago, and which you might have missed. I first wrote about Nick here.

When I started out in the world of funerals, they were just that little bit less complicated, and the “big groups” just didn’t exist, (with maybe the exception of the Great Southern Group). Even the Co-Ops were still in “bite-size” individual chunks of local business.

In terms of evolution, 1970 was not that long ago, but in terms of business, thats another story.

Things were simple, costs were realistic – a “regular” cremation cost between £170 – £190 depending on the catering. Few firms thought of offering pipers, doves, fireworks, novelty hearses etc., and most funeral services had humble premises – with a chapel of rest at a chosen few. The Austin princess motor hearse was King.

Then along came big business and public expectation, driven by “what America does today”, and health and safety costs, profit margins, national advertising, working time directives etc etc.

Now, I’ve always supported the “is there anything else I can do for you?” approach of a conscientious Funeral Director, but, by segmenting the choice of Basic, Traditional and wherever else grades/costs of funerals, there obviously has to be a point where the FD draws the line.

It could be argued that in their haste to outdo Smith Bros down the road, Miggins Bros Undertakers have created a financial rod for their own back, and so on across the UK. The new premises may be palatial, but the cost inevitably goes on the funeral bill.

Local authorities set the cremation and burial costs, private enterprise follows – and therein lies the largest chunk of profit in the funeral account. A “sacred cow” which is arguably a bit of a scandal. The profit created by a council-run crematorium is substantial.

By getting caught-up in the business rat race, most FDs have adopted the “grow or disappear” ethos. They probably have little other choice. Their accounts will reflect that situation.

Ironic, therefore, that a growing number of “funeral buyers” actually seek the opposite of the “monster” that modern trend has created.

Something “dignified and very simple” is a request that I hear more often these days.

When comparing and justifing the costs of providing the elements of a funeral, few people outside the funeral profession can have the slightest idea of just how many factors come into play.

Some FDs have built a business aimed at the more humble of us, with day-to-day costs that match. There are firms that aim their business to extract as much wonga from the public as they can possibly get away with.

The one thing these firms have in common is the fact that their true costs for any individual portion of their service will not be the same. Thus, it’s virtually impossible to compare true like-for-like figures between Undertakers.

The writer that compares the costs of a £30 taxi ride with the cost of providing a hearse for the same journey is, alas, not thinking through the implications of his/her comparison.

Yes, things can be provided for a heck of a lot less than at present, but reality has to be part of the deal. It costs serious money to provide the elements of a funeral – whether a firms provides for 100 funerals a month, or just 2.

I personally think that the funeral businesses in the UK have, to a degree, lost their way. By trying to be “all things to all people” they have created an impossible rod for their own backs – though for arguably all the right and proper reasons.

My ethos is “keep it simple”.

Nick adds, in a further comment, these words in response to Jonathan’s assertion that “Funeral directors aren’t set up to cater for direct cremation because the demand is almost nil.”

It is true that as individual firms, few traditional FDs will receive enquiries for direct cemations on a regular basis.

You may agree, or not, that because there is little profit in direct cremation, as opposed to the traditional funeral, there is little incentive for FDs to actively promote this method of disposition.

Because we specialize in providing the service, our costs are appropriately less than would otherwise be the case, and we pass those savings on to our clients.

You also wrote “I’d guess a reasonable fee for direct cremation from an established funeral director would be around £1800-£2000”.

Would it be a surprise to learn that one of London’s premier and most respected FD’s (established circa 170 years) offers such a service for £1182 (inc your disbursement figures) albeit on a local basis. Our charges for the same service would be £1147.

Direct cremation will never be the first and obvious choice for all families, but the growing interest by “thinking people” in this choice of funeral outlines a trend away from tradition.

We are more than happy to provide a cost effective choice for families, whilst acknowledging that traditional funerals are, on the whole, reasonably priced and good value in the UK.

Nick talks about ‘thinking people’. He’s talking, I guess, about the same sort of intellectuals who, years ago, championed cremation when it was reckoned barbaric. To opt for no funeral, or for a celebration of life, without the costly and distracting presence of a dead body is entirely consistent with atheist beliefs, and with the beliefs of any who subscribe to the duality of body and spirit. When the playwright Arthur Miller was asked if he’d be attending the funeral of his ex-wife, Marilyn Monroe, he replied: “Why would I? She won’t be there.”

Thank you very much, Nick, for going to all this trouble! We are indebted to you (metaphorically, I stress!)

Funeralcare screwupdate, with added overpricing

12 May 2010

Charles

10 Comments

Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare, coffins, direct cremation, funeral cost, no service by request

It is with a heavy-hearted sense of duty that I record this beastly and deplorable allegation against Co-operative Funeralcare. You can find the full version at MoneySavingExpert.com.

Don’t use co-operative funeralcare directors they are disgusting …They failed to complete the legal documents correctly they put the wrong funeral date on the documents … We were refused entry into the crematorium chapel and were left outside in the cold distressed and in total shock, the funeral directors were an absolute disgrace they were too busy blaming the crematoria staff and they in turn were blaming the funeral directors. They threw the flowers into my mums hearse and put her photo in on its side! they showed us no respect or help at all just told us to go back to our cars because the service would not go ahead today. It was only after myself and my family refused to move and told them to get the police that they started to accept that they would have to do something so the service could go ahead. DO NOT USE THE CO-OPERATIVE FUNERAL GROUP!!!!!

Here is an all-too-familiar complaint from the Guardian:

I had problems with the accounts section of Co-operative Funeralcare. When I booked the funeral I said that I would not be able to pay for it until probate had been granted. I was told that would be fine provided I kept the accounts section informed. On the day, and before, the staff involved with the funeral were brilliant. Afterwards I began getting threatening letters from the accounts department. I explained what was happening, but the threatening letters continued, including threats of Court Action and referral to debt collectors … Obviously no company would survive if it was not paid for it’s services, but I had expected a more human approach from Co-operative Funeralcare accounts department, not just communication with a computer.

Also from the Guardian, a case of an unaccountably expensive funeral, even after taking into account the fact that the only charge the writer saved himself was the cost of a celebrant:

In the last 12 months, I have sadly lost my Mum and my wife. Mum’s funeral in South London cost £1480 (inc VAT). My wife’s funeral in Fenland cost £2950 (inc Vat). In both cases we did not make use of a vicar, but conducted the service at the crematorium myself. The only ‘extra’ was another doctor’s certificate needed in the case of my wife. We had no headstones or plaques and no announcements in the newspapers. Included in the Fenland charge was £357 for a vehicle to travel 22 miles from the undertaker’s to the crematorium. I felt , and still do feel, very ripped off … The company we used in Fenland had been taken over by the Co-Op, but hadn’t told anybody.

The following, from the Independent, are not Co-op stories. But there is a moral in them for all funeral directors, because they are going to encounter more and more demand, especially from atheists, for direct cremation:

It was my aunt’s misfortune to die on Maundy Thursday, less than 24 hours before the longest bank holiday of the year. She had donated her body to medical science … But when the day came, her donation was, maddeningly, refused … My uncle and I discussed what to do. We agreed to go for the simplest option, in accordance with what we believed would have been her wishes. I began making enquiries. I phoned six funeral directors and asked them to quote for a cremation. In London, a 45-minute slot at a crematorium costs around £500, but if you are prepared to accept an early morning appointment – 9am or 9.30am – the charge drops to less than £200. In addition, you must pay the fees of two doctors to confirm the death, amounting together to £147 … The quotes I received from the funeral directors ranged from £1,500 to £2,000. I did some arithmetic. Allowing £200 for the cremation, £150 for the doctors’ signatures and £150 for a cardboard coffin (at cost) came to £500 in all. The task for the funeral director was to collect the body from the hospital – St Mary’s, Paddington – and take it to the crematorium (Golders Green, Marylebone, Islington or – the cheapest – Mortlake). For the living, the cost of this journey by taxi would be about £30. For the dead, it turns out, it is £1,000. Dead unlucky, you could say. Next time, I plan to hire an estate car, buy a coffin and do the job myself.

And this:

My father died in 2008. He was a staunch atheist who asked for his body to be ‘offered as convenient for medical use or research and otherwise to be cremated wholly without ceremony’. The hospital didn’t manage to take up this offer so we were faced with the same problem. We were unimpressed with what seemed absurdly expensive offers from undertakers. Eventually my brother took Dad’s body from the hospital mortuary to the crematorium by van, at a fraction of the price. This was entirely successful, and it was what Dad wanted. It’s time the death industry started providing for those of us who do not want any ritual around our remains.

Do leave a comment — especially if you are a funeral director.