Funeral Director Daily

SCI CEO Tom Ryan on Covid deaths, preneed, and acquisitions

By Funeral Director Daily / November 10, 2021 /

Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest provider of funeral services in North America, recently released their 3rd Quarter 2021 results and following that company executives answered questions from stock analysts about the company and death care in general.  You can read a complete transcript of that commentary here. If you are not interested in reading…

Time to regulate the anatomical bequest business

By Funeral Director Daily / November 9, 2021 /

As a funeral director every so often I was asked by a person or family to help with an anatomical bequest of a person who wanted to donate their body for medical research.  I’m located between Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Grand Forks, North Dakota, where the medical schools for those respective states are located.  There was…

The Segmentation of an Industry

By Funeral Director Daily / November 8, 2021 /

I recently read this article from The Irish Catholic where Joseph Behan of Hibernian Funerals explained that Covid-19 has changed many things about death care in Ireland.  For instance, he told of the “Tell us Once” format where instead of notifying the post office, the credit union, your bank and others of your death there…

What about Closure?

By Funeral Director Daily / November 5, 2021 /

It’s Friday.  How about we take a couple of minutes to think about how death, dying, grief, and funerals deal with what is always termed as “Closure”.  Are you aware of how often we use the term?  What does it mean?  Do our client families desire this? I bring up the subject because this past…

Back to the Future

By Funeral Director Daily / November 4, 2021 /

The World Series has been played for the past two weeks and I’m a baseball fan. . . and former little league coach.  I’m “Old School” and don’t particularly like the “data-driven” strategy decisions used in today’s game of baseball.  I like the past when you watched a hitter’s feet move to determine if they…

Could “Skimpflation” be part of your margin solution??

By Funeral Director Daily / November 3, 2021 /

My wife, Angie, came home from the grocery store on Monday morning and showed me a bag of Honeycrisp apples that priced out at over $18. . . Now, I don’t buy the groceries, but I could tell from her reaction that this was a high price for these apples.  So, I think we know…

Carriage Services announces record 3rd Quarter Results, comments on acquisition environment

By Funeral Director Daily / November 2, 2021 /

Funeral home and cemetery consolidator Carriage Services reported on the financial results of their 3rd Quarter for 2021 and in doing so reported record 3rd Quarter revenue for a quarter of $95.0 million.  That is 12.6% higher than the $84.3 million of revenue recorded in the 3rd Quarter of 2020. Here’s what is said in…

Funeral homes adding “assisted death” to service options

By Funeral Director Daily / November 1, 2021 /

What some people term “Death with Dignity” is a growing movement that I confess to know little about.  However, the acronym MAID, which stands for “Medical Assistance in Dying” and is part of the Death with Dignity movement is becoming better known and accepted.  Legal in Canada since 2016 the Medical Assistance in Dying Movement…

SCI’s 3Q Report continues solid run

By Funeral Director Daily / October 29, 2021 /

Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest funeral home and cemetery operator in North America reported their 3rd Quarter 2021 financial results on Wednesday.  You can see them for yourself here. Here’s some of what Tom Ryan, Service Corporation’s CEO said of the 3Q 2021 results, “Today we are reporting another strong quarter with earnings .…

Can your funeral home capitalize on 2nd funerals?

By Funeral Director Daily / October 28, 2021 /

I read this article from the Toronto Sun where Canadian funeral director Diane Moniz-Alves commented, “It has been quite traumatizing for families, not being able to have a proper funeral.”  And, last Spring I attended as a member of our funeral home a “family only” committal service simply because I wanted to pay my respects…