Frequently Asked Questions
Question: Why do funerals cost so much?
Ownership, location and local customs play a big role in funeral pricing. While traditional funeral, casket and cemetery costs can vary greatly, they generally are more expensive in the middle and eastern states and more reasonably priced in the western regions of the United States. The western states population embraced cremation practices way before the other states. More competition was created in the western states and pricing of such was reduced as competition increased. In addition, ownership of these entities also played a role in increased competition. As investor financed corporations began to swallow up smaller mom and pop funeral homes and cemeteries, prices of those acquired locations increased dramatically over the years. Potential independent entrepreneur competitors saw opportunity and opened up newly formed simple cremation centers all over the western states. These simple cremation centers saw rapid growth and slowly took away business from those acquired and now corporate investor owned funeral homes. As these corporate owned funeral homes lost business to the newly formed independent operators of simple burial and cremation centers, the corporate owned entities had to increase prices accordingly to stay in business. Thus, those regions where corporate owned entities operated, saw dramatic price increases almost every year.