The Cost of Saying Goodbye

29 March

The average burial now costs £3,168, while the average price of a cremation is £2,546, according to market researcher Mintel. This represents an inflation-busting rise of 8% per year over a six-year period.

According to funeral industry experts the rise is due largely to expensive new crematorium emission controls and the rise in cost of burial plots.

The average price of a funeral is estimated at £7000, which might include hearse rental at £275 and a burial at £600. Even a cardboard coffin, so pragmatic and environmentally unimpeachable, can retail at around £90.The bereaved are advised to shop around, finding quotes from various funeral directors and searching out the most competitive deal, but the traditional black funeral invariably costs more than those with middle to low incomes can afford to spend.

Rosie Inman-Cook, manager of the Natural Death Centre, is critical of the culture of institutionalized funerals, and warns of the unseen charges attached to them. ‘People do choose expensive funeral directors,’ she said, ‘but a big jump in prices has come through disbursement fees, such as cemetery management costs, which are out of the hands of funeral directors.’ New EU regulations stipulating a refit of the scrubbers in crematorium chimneys will raise the price of cremation and put older crematoria at risk, while regular cemeteries continue to be a huge drain on the public purse. Graves become cluttered with tributes, and prices have to go up in line with maintenance costs.

There is also considerable misinformation about the legal praxis of funerals and the handling of remains, which is unfairly pushing people towards more elaborate and unnecessary procedures. ‘The second doctor’s fee for signing off a cremation, introduced in the wake of the Harold Shipman case, is another cost,’ said Rosie. ‘This is known in the industry as ‘ash cash’: a nice little earner for the profession, but one that could well be done without.’ Mounting bureaucracy and administration charges are obscuring the fact that DIY funerals, which sidestep the funeral profession altogether, are perfectly legal and, as Rosie puts it, ‘surprisingly unregulated’. ‘There is a lot of ignorance about funeral legislation,’ she says, ‘and a lot of myths that suit the professionals.’

Research has shown that bereaved people find it particularly difficult to make informed decisions, and this can be a problem when making funeral preparations that come with price tags. Shaun Powell is project manager for Down to Earth, a scheme run by Quaker Social Action to help those with low incomes to arrange funerals. He points out that while funeral directors do a very professional job, they are, ultimately, in business. ‘At the end of the day you are buying a funeral; it’s a product,’ he said. ‘The market demands the same kind of consumer behaviour as if you had not just been bereaved; you need to compare prices and analyze the situation rationally. There are many factors in play, and whenever you’re buying any kind of product you need to negotiate.'

The lavish funeral is embedded in our culture and, according to Shaun, is a hangover from the institution of the grand Victorian send-off. ‘The Victorians really championed the opulent funeral in a way not seen since the ancient Egyptians. You were expected to be able to afford a huge funeral, and the stigma of a pauper’s funeral still persists. We are in the shadow of those Victorian mores.’

More than a century later, a reconsideration of funeral values may be due. The death rate in the UK is at its lowest in years, but this will soon change as the baby boomer generation begin to reach the ends of their lives. The government Social Fund for funerals is insufficient, and likely to be reduced in the teeth of the recession. ‘We want people to take more control over funerals,’ Shaun says, ‘and to feel that they can ask about what they want. We hope for the ‘spirit of DIY’ to become more widespread.’

What to do? Funeral debt is on the rise, and the industry has recognized this, bringing out new products at lower prices, including the basic, unnervingly named ‘disposal service.’ However it is worth remembering that you can legally carry out the entire funeral and burial process yourself, so long as you have the means to execute it with dignity. You can build your own coffin; pick wild flowers for the graveside; some cemeteries even allow you to dig the grave yourself, under supervision. There are certain stipulations on home burial and reporting burials to the registrar, but the idea that the sombre crew in the sharp black suits are indispensable is a misconception. According to Shaun, what a funeral looks like has come to overshadow what is really important; that is, the final act of remembrance. ‘We want a good simple funeral, with dignity, to become an acceptable thing to ask for.’