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SALT LAKE CITY — Most people pick the closest funeral home, but you can save thousands of dollars if you shop around for the best price.
Making final arrangements for a deceased relative is one of the biggest expenses families face. But it's not something most people do very often, leaving many of us nearly clueless on what we should do.
"One of the first mistakes I see people making is to go to the funeral home that's closest to their house,” said Joyce Mitchell, who leads the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Utah. Since 2000, the group has helped families carry out affordable and dignified funerals. Mitchell said going with the closest funeral home, or the one at the top of a hospital's list, doesn't mean you'll pay less.
"(People) can really hire a funeral home that's a county away, if it charges $2,000 less,” she said.
You should compare costs for transporting the body, caskets or urns and arrangement options such as a viewing versus a direct burial or cremation.
"If the funeral director does not give you a price list up front for you to be examining while he speaks to you, he needs to start the discussion over: He's in violation of federal trade commission rules,” Mitchell said.
People also should be aware they do not have to buy the casket or urn from the funeral home.
No casket is going to last forever. It's going to break down. It will break down.
–Robert Alexander, casket maker
"In fact, it's illegal for them to charge an extra fee for you providing your own casket,” she said.
Craftsman Robert Alexander builds caskets in his woodshop. The average metal casket will cost around $2,400. Compare that to Alexander's pine caskets that start at $295 and go up to $900.
"People have been mortgaging their homes, (getting) a second mortgage to pay for a funeral,” Alexander said.
Alexander said sure, you can buy an upscale mahogany or even stainless steel casket designed to help keep out the elements. But he questions that sort of expense since even sealed caskets costing thousands of dollars more cannot preserve a body.
"No casket is going to last forever. It's going to break down,” he said. “It will break down."
What often happens is that people treat funeral directors as a bishop or a priest, Alexander said. You do not have to unquestionably accept their entire package of services and should instead only choose the services you want.
"A funeral director is a businessman,” Alexander said. "He's got to pay his overhead, he's got to pay his people, he's got his property taxes just like any other business."
David Hess, program director for the Mortuary Science program at Salt Lake Community College and a funeral director himself, said a lot of the costs of a funeral are to help the business function.
A good funeral director will tell you that, and they will go with what the family will afford. It's not a good business practice for a funeral director to push something onto a family they cannot afford, because as a business person, I know, hey, I may not get paid for it.
–David Hess
"It is a business,” Hess said. “That's what drives the costs, is the operational costs we have."
Just because you're trying to save on costs doesn't mean you're sacrificing dignity, Hess added.
"A good funeral director will tell you that, and they will go with what the family will afford,” Hess said. “It's not a good business practice for a funeral director to push something onto a family they cannot afford, because as a business person, I know, hey, I may not get paid for it."
Hess said too many people are not discussing funeral plans, and Joyce Mitchell agrees. She said given the great of expense of dying, we should be prepared to know how to handle it.
"We've sold off our responsibility to the funeral home, and so it carries on from person to person, this lack of knowing how to navigate a purchase like this, or a responsibility like this,” Mitchell said.
When weighing funeral costs, consider that most cemeteries require you buy a concrete burial vault to prevent the ground from caving in once the dirt settles. Experience tells us the least expensive vault will do, so there is no need for upgrades.
Cremation is a lot less expensive than a burial and now accounts for 41 percent of all funerals. By 2025, it's expected to rise to 56 percent.
For more information on how to get the best funeral deal in Utah, visit Funeral Consumer Alliance of Utah's website utahfunerals.org.
