Funeral Director Daily

The Revenue Drop

By Funeral Director Daily / October 30, 2018 /

While I did not attend the recent National Funeral Director’s Association gathering in Salt Lake City, I recently visited with an attendee about the gathering.  One of the things that this veteran funeral director told me was that he cannot remember a time when so many traditional funeral home owners talked about revenue declines and…

Funeral Home Firms announce Dividends

By Funeral Director Daily / October 29, 2018 /

Last week public market funeral home and cemetery operators Park Lawn Corporation and Carriage Services made announcements about their dividends to stockholders going forward. In an article that you can read here Park Lawn Corporation announced that they will be paying a monthly dividend in November of $C 0.038 per share – which on an…

Jury Awards Mom in California Coroner Cremation Case

By Funeral Director Daily / October 29, 2018 /

You can read an article here from Sacramento’s CBS Local which explains a jury award just last Friday that amounted to $605,000 victory for the mother of an infant cremated without her expressed wishes. The Los Angeles County based case actually put the damages to the mother at $1.1 million but also said that the…

The Week in Review

By Funeral Director Daily / October 26, 2018 /

    A lot happened in the death care industry this week.  Here some links to stories that we were not able to tell you about: A California fire department being called out for a fire in a crematory.  Read here.   A community meeting in Chicago after gunfire breaks out at a funeral.  Read…

Does Your Community have a Death Cafe?

By Funeral Director Daily / October 26, 2018 /

The idea of a “Death Cafe” is somewhat new according to this article from Pennsylvania.  It’s not what you might think and this one was started by funeral director Carolyn Fletcher about three years ago in the Pittsburgh area.  According to the article the concept started in 2011 in England and there are now regularly…

Spanish Funeral Firms Consider Merger

By Funeral Director Daily / October 25, 2018 /

The second and third largest funeral home firms in Spain are considering a merger according to this article from Reuters.  Santa Lucia’s subsidiary Albia and Mapfres’ subsidiary Funespana are the number two and three in funeral services in the country and are contemplating teaming up to become a company that would do about $229 million…

The Grandfather Clause

By Funeral Director Daily / October 25, 2018 /

We learned the other day of a potential lawsuit being filed against the Amigone Funeral Home near Buffalo, New York.  It turns out, according to an article,  that the company’s crematory was shut down in 2012 by the state Attorney General citing “viable (viable was printed, but I believe this may be a misprint and…

Cemetery receives up to 50,000 Visitors

By Funeral Director Daily / October 24, 2018 /

So, we are exactly one week from Halloween.  I noticed this article from Boston.com that you can read here about the Charter Street Cemetery in Salem, Massachusetts receiving thousands of visitors and had to find out why. Turns out that the Charter Street Cemetery was formerly known as The Old Burying Point Cemetery and is…

Celebrating 100 Years in San Francisco

By Funeral Director Daily / October 23, 2018 /

Steven Welch is a guy that I think I would like.  He is the 4th generation owner of Duggan’s Funeral Service in San Francisco, California – a funeral home that is celebrating its 100th year in business this week.  Here is an article that you can read from the San Francisco Chronicle on the funeral…

The Death Care Index and an Upwards Earning Trend

By Funeral Director Daily / October 22, 2018 /

Funeral Director Daily has established the DCI or Death Care Index for eight publicly traded companies that operate in the death care industry.  The companies, all headquartered in North America, operate in the financial (preneed) sector, the manufacturing (caskets and monuments) sector, or the retail (funeral home and cemetery) sector. The companies include Security National…