Getting one last deal
It might sound morbid, but you can comparison-shop for your funeral
By Bruce Mohl, Globe Staff | July 1, 2007
If you knew one store was charging $3,600 less than another
for the same product, you know where you'd be shopping.
But all too often in the funeral business, consumers aren't
aware that prices can vary so dramatically from one funeral home to
the next. They don't shop around because they either have to act quickly
or they're uncomfortable with treating a funeral like any other purchase.
Now one company, Everest Funeral Package LLC, is trying
to make shopping for funeral services easier with a first-of-its-kind
online database showing prices at nearly every funeral home in the country.
For $30, consumers can comparison-shop from the comfort of their homes
for everything from cremations to embalming services to hearses.
"With this information, purchasing a funeral starts
to look like anything else you buy. It isn't any different from buying
a car or a house," said Mark Duffey , chief executive of Everest,
which is based in Houston.
The information in the Everest database indicates consumers
could save significant money by shopping around. In Greater Boston,
for example, the Everest database indicates the cost of arranging a
simple cremation ranges from a low of $995 at Anderson-Bryant Funeral
Home in Stoneham to a high of $4,625 at the Boston Harborside Home of
J.S. Waterman & Son-Waring-Langone.
The service fee that every funeral home charges to arrange
a traditional funeral ranges from a low of $895 at Commonwealth Funeral
Service in Boston to a high of $3,620 at the Stanetsky-Hymanson Memorial
Chapel in Salem.
The data also indicate that funeral homes owned by Houston-based
Service Corporation Interna tional, the nation's largest funeral home
chain, tend to charge significantly more than locally owned independent
funeral homes. SCI owns both the Boston Harborside Home of J.S. Waterman
and the Stanetsky-Hymanson home.
According to Everest, SCI homes in Greater Boston charge
an average of $3,672 for a simple cremation, while the average price
at independent homes is $2,227.
"In most industries, the market leader is the low-cost
leader," Duffey said. "It's all upside down in the funeral
industry. The reason it is is because people don't price-shop, they
buy on brand, and most people believe all prices are the same."
Robyn Sadowsky , an SCI spokeswoman, said the company's
service fees are often higher than what other funeral homes charge because
so many value-added services are included, such as 24-hour help lines,
travel assistance, and the ability to transfer funeral arrangements
to another SCI home in another city. She said SCI's merchandise prices
are often lower than what competitors charge.
"When you combine the cost of a casket, we'll be
competitive," she said.
Funeral homes are required by law to provide pricing information
to consumers upon request. The Everest database took six months and
more than 50,000 calls to assemble and will be regularly updated, Duffey
said. He said approximately 6 percent of the nation's 20,000 funeral
homes did not provide their pricing information, and their names will
be forwarded to the Federal Trade Commission.
Duffey said Boston-area prices are generally higher than
the national average, partly because costs are higher here but also
because people in the Northeast tend to be more reluctant to shop around
for funeral services, he said.
The average cost of a cremation nationally is $2,040,
compared with $2,227 in the Boston area. The average basic service charge
of a funeral home is $1,608 nationally, but $1,939 in Greater Boston.
Everest's pricing reports let consumers hunt for funeral
homes geographically by ZIP code. A $29.95 report includes prices for
selected services at eight funeral homes. There's not enough information
in the report to accurately price all costs of a funeral, but there
is enough information to gauge whether a home is more or less expensive
than its competitors.
The reports don't include prices for caskets, burial vaults,
flowers, police escorts, or death certificates, because apples-to-apples
comparisons between funeral homes are difficult. Instead, national averages
are included to give consumers some sense of what their ultimate bill
will be.
The price reports are an offshoot of Everest's "funeral
concierge" business, which involves the planning and arranging
of funeral services on behalf of consumers. The concierge service costs
$48 a year for an individual ($68 for a couple) or a one-time fee of
$495 ($695 for a couple). Up to six pricing reports a year are included
with the concierge service. Everest also sells insurance designed to
help cover funeral costs.
Local funeral industry officials said the $30 cost of
an Everest pricing report seemed high, particularly since the information
is readily available if a consumer is willing to make some calls.
"If consumers find value in that and are willing
to pay $29.95, God bless them," said Robert Biggins , owner of
the Magoun-Biggins Funeral Home in Rockland, who makes his price list
available online.
John Anderson , the owner of the Anderson-Bryant Funeral
Home in Stoneham, said an online price list would be useful to people
shopping around for easy-to-compare services, like cremations. But he,
too, thought the price was steep.
Josh Slocum , executive director of the Funeral Consumers
Alliance in South Burlington, Vt., bristles at the way Everest promotes
itself as "the nation's leading consumer advocate for funerals"
in its press materials. He said Everest is more interested in making
a buck than protecting consumers.
Slocum says the alliance has been preaching the benefits
of price-shopping for years and many of its chapters put out annual
price lists that are available for free. "We show people how to
help themselves," he said.
But the price lists are sometimes dated or incomplete.
The Vermont chapter's price survey comes out every two years.
The most recent price survey from the Eastern Massachusetts
chapter was released in early 2006, but it includes data on only 57
of 639 funeral homes in the area.
Duffey says he has sold several thousand price reports
so far, many of them to funeral directors checking out the prices of
their competitors. He thinks online pricing will eventually catch on
with consumers, particularly baby boomers who like to gather as much
research as possible before making a purchase.
"Unless you're armed with a report like this, there's
no way a funeral home will drop its price," Duffey said. "If
you can save a couple thousand dollars, then maybe $29.95 is worth it."
Bruce Mohl can be reached at mohl@globe.com.
© Copyright 2005 The New
York Times Company
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