United Kingdom to regulate funeral plans

In the United Kingdom, sales of pre-need funeral plans has soared nearly 200% in the last dozen years.  Driven by the increasing competition between the largest players in that country’s death care industry, Dignity Plc, and Co-op Funeralcare, the government has determined that it must “crack-down” on high-pressure and misleading tactics in the sale of funeral plans.

In this article from Reuters you can read of the government’s plan to regulate the pre-paid sector for the first time to ensure the market is competitive and that consumers understand what they are buying.

According to the article, the sector will now be overseen by the Financial Conduct Authority who also have the responsibility to regulate over 58,000 financial service firms in Britain.  A spokesman noted, “anyone found breaching the regulations can have their authorization revoked, face fines, and even criminal charges”.

Again, according to the article, it is noted that last year about 177,000 plans were sold in the country and the average range of the plans was between US $ 3,159 and US $ 6,319.  Using the average of those figures would put the domestic market for pre-arrangements at over US $838 million – a sizable sum to escape regulation to this point.

Funeral Director Daily take:  Generally, I’m a small government person — the less regulation the better.  However, when it turns to this kind of sums of money, a competitive environment, and potentially older-aged adults who could be vulnerable, I think some type of regulations and best practices among competitors is best for the industry.

It is my point of view that regulation and licensure might help eliminate some of the bad press the industry receives when one who is not doing pre-arrangement properly is discovered.

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