Funeral Director Daily

SCI settles “Deceptive sales” lawsuit for $209 million

By Funeral Director Daily / September 20, 2022 /

Service Corporation International (SCI) has agreed to provide up to $209 million in refunds to settle a federal class-action lawsuit alleging it deceived 87,000 Florida customers who purchased its prepaid plans according to this article from last week from Yahoo News. According to the article SCI Direct (formerly called Neptune Society Management Corporation) was named…

Top read stories and more information for you

By Funeral Director Daily / September 19, 2022 /

It is our custom at Funeral Director Daily to post the top-read stories of the past 30 days at the middle of every month.  Just in case you missed one or two of them.  . here they are. In addition we are putting out some information for that you may find useful pertaining to the…

Mortuary school enrollment jumps 24% in 2021, even bigger jump expected this year

By Funeral Director Daily / September 19, 2022 /

One of the few positives to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic may be the way that funeral directors were perceived by the public.  There’s no doubt that during the pandemic funeral directors were seen as unselfish heroes in many communities for the way they handled the high number of deaths. And it may be,…

Are funeral home’s values getting hit with a “Double Whammy”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 16, 2022 /

A sale, or commerce if you will, occurs when a willing buyer and a willing seller reach agreement on a price for a good or service and then that price is paid from the buyer to the seller to mark the transaction.  While we don’t always think of it in that term, transactions like this…

Seeking Alpha article touts Matthews International as “cheap dividend stock to consider”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 15, 2022 /

On the same day that the Dow Jones Industrials average dropped the deepest in the past two years (Tuesday, September 13) Seeking Alpha author Austin Rogers opined in this article that death care conglomerate Matthews International (MATW) would be one of his Top 3 picks to choose as a stock in the category “Cheap Dividend…

Americans would rather talk about any subject than death

By Funeral Director Daily / September 15, 2022 /

Recently I came across this article from the Insurance NewsNet based on a survey from health insurer, Ethos.  The article was based on what traditionally taboo subjects would people be willing to talk about.  Turns out that 81% of the people were willing to talk about Money, but at the bottom of the list came…

The succession dilemma of rural funeral home ownership

By Funeral Director Daily / September 14, 2022 /

Over the past several weeks I’ve had several instances which caused me to wonder “What is going to happen to rural America’s home town, home-owned, funeral homes.”  Again, it has not been one thing, but a string of instances that have made me wonder about that. For instance, I know of firms in my state…

Anthem Partners makes 19 location acquisition

By Funeral Director Daily / September 13, 2022 /

We learned last week via this press release that Anthem Partners, the Frisco, Texas, based owner and operator of funeral homes and cemeteries had acquired Serenity & Company Memorial Service.  According to the press release, Serenity & Company began in 2007 in Arkansas, but has expanded and now operates in Arkansas, California, Nevada, and New…

Messenger acquires Thumbies; thoughts on the “new memorialization”

By Funeral Director Daily / September 13, 2022 /

In this news release from Messenger News you can read about the Messenger Company and its acquisition of the Thumbies Fingerprint Keepsakes business.  The release states that “the new addition to the Messenger family of companies will allow the Messenger team of sales representatives to offer the complete line of Thumbies jewelry in their portfolio…

The case for a free-market (funeral business) society

By Funeral Director Daily / September 12, 2022 /

Last week I saw an article about the Fast Food Accountability and Standards (FAST) Recovery Act that has passed both houses of the California legislature and is awaiting a signature by Governor Gavin Newsome to make it a law.  Part of what that law would do is create a 10-person fast-food council with employee and…