Consumers do have some federal protection in what is known popularly as the "Funeral Rule." It is the set of regulations issued by the Federal Trade Commission after a lengthy investigation of the industry. It went into effect in 1984 and was amended in 1994.
The rule makes it illegal for funeral homes to offer only "packaged deals" with no breakdown of costs. It forbids a number of "unfair and deceptive" practices, including telling people embalming is required by law when it is not or that a casket is required for direct cremation or charging a fee for using a casket acquired elsewhere. It requires funeral homes to give prices over the telephone and to provide a printed list of 17 items -- the goods and services it offers, each with its price -- that the consumer may keep.
The rule does permit funeral homes to charge a lump-sum fee for basic professional services of funeral director and staff. Known as the "non-declinable fee," it may include "all charges for the recovery of unallocated funeral provider overhead," according to the FTC regulations.
The fee usually amounts to about 20 percent of the total bill. It remains a point of contention even after the 1994 amendments. Walkinshaw calls the fee "absolutely logical." FAMSA and its member societies are lobbying for its elimination.
They believe it is unfair for someone opting for a direct burial with simple graveside service -- no use of the funeral home for visiting hours or viewing -- to be "charged at the same rate as someone choosing a funeral with viewing and a church ceremony."
"Fees that are non-declinable by their very nature reduce consumer choice," FAMSA testified before the FTC earlier this year. "This is antithetical to the principle underlying the Funeral Rule."
"We have a right to charge a fee for our services," says Walkinshaw. The other alternative is to break it out into its component parts. So you are going to be charged for an arrangements conference ... a per-hour charge. You are going to get a per-hour charge when we have to chase a doctor for two days to get a death certificate."
Walkinshaw says that in the 20 years he has been a funeral director he has "never once had a consumer ask me, 'Why was that fee what it was? Isn't that fee too high?' Never. It just isn't a consumer issue."
"If you were to do away with that fee," says Walkinshaw, "that would make it far more difficult for consumers to compare [prices] than it is right now."
One requirement of the rule is that before a discussion of caskets, the funeral home must hand consumers a separate price list of all the casket prices. Since that list is not given consumers to keep, advocates advise people to take notes. The rule also lists a series of "misrepresentations" and "deceptive acts." To learn more about the law, visit the FTC's explanation on its Web site or call its consumer's toll-free number (see "Who can help you," following this article).
Last things
"Undertakers are trying to help you be compassionate toward the dying," says the Rev. Vienna Cobb Anderson, long-time pastoral counselor with hospice as well as the St. Francis Center, now renamed the William A. Wendt Center. However, "they mistakenly think that you want comfort, creature comfort, and that they can provide it. They can't provide that. Creature comfort the dead body doesn't need."
Anderson feels strongly about how families and the church approach the end of life. She has long experience helping people deal with grief and with dying and she has very personal experience when she and her mother had to bury her father.
"They were trying to make mother think in physical comfort mode and that this is the last thing she was doing for her beloved husband. Everyone falls into that trap." Anderson calls that trap "a fallacy," one "that gets fed by the funeral industry."
"It is the last thing you can do and you want to do the very best so you spend money like crazy. It is not the last thing you do for your beloved. The last thing you do is commit them to God in that wonderful end of the liturgy when we say 'Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we commit you to Almighty God.'
"That's the last thing we do for our beloved ... and if we haven't done the loving compassionate thing through life, we aren't going to make up for it by spending a lot of money in death." |
Who can help you
More than 120 funeral and memorial societies exist across the country. All of them offer information and referrals to the most responsible and lowest-cost mortuaries in their region. Many of them publish extensive comparative price surveys every few years. Membership fees are usually nominal -- $15 to $25 for lifetime membership. To find the one nearest you, contact Lisa Carlson or FAMSA at P.O. Box 10, Hinesburg, Vt. 05461; 800-766-0107; www.funerals.org/famsa.
The Good Shepherd Funeral Program (480-303-0918), which was started by the the Rev. Henry Wasielewski and the Interfaith Funeral Information Committee (IFIC), offers extremely low-cost, full funerals in Arizona and will help people in other parts of the country who want to start similar efforts.
Wasielkewski and the IFIC also provide a four-page leaflet with color pictures of more than a dozen caskets, metal and wood, made by U.S. manufacturers. It lists their wholesale price, Good Shepherd's retail price and the retail price charged by other funeral homes. The leaflet also lists four things every consumer needs to know: 1. A fair price for a funeral is between $1,400 and $2,200. 2. Hold services in your church instead of using the funeral parlor. 3. Don't buy protective seal caskets. 4. Don't buy a "pre-paid" plan. The IFIC can be reached at 602-253-6814; www.xroads.com/-funerals.
The National Funeral Directors Association, whose mission is to "enhance the funeral service profession and promote quality service to the consumer," can be reached at 13625 Bishop's Drive, Brookfield, Wis. 53005; 800-228-6332; nfda@nfda.org.
Jessica Mitford's book "The American Way of Death Revisited" published by Knopf, costs $25 and is available in most bookstores. Lisa Carlson's "Caring for the Dead: Your Final Act of Love," which covers both problems and solutions, lists, by state, all local memorial societies and the local laws covering funerals. It is published by Upper Access Inc. in Hinesburg, Vt., 800-310-8320, and costs $29.95.
"Funerals and Burials: Goods and Services," an American Association of Retired Persons Product Report, is available free from AARP Fulfillment, 601 E St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20049.
The Federal Trade Commission Web site, www.ftc.gov/bcp/online/pubs/buspubs/funeral/what/htm, provides an explanation of the Funeral Rule. For a copy of its free brochure, "The Funeral Rule," call the FTC Consumer Response Center's toll-free number, 877-382-4357.
