Funeral Director Daily

Life Expectancy drops again in United States

By Funeral Director Daily / November 17, 2023 /

      According to this recent article from Stat, life expectancies in America have dropped and the gap between Men’s life expectancies and Women’s life expectancies continues to widen.  The statistics show that men now have life expectancies 5.8 years less than women.   Overall United States life expectancies have dropped from 78.8 years…

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It has to work for everyone

By Funeral Director Daily / November 16, 2023 /

Over my lifetime I’ve learned that if something can work for everyone involved it’s probably a good thing.  Getting “it” to work out for everyone is probably one of the problems we have with health insurance. . . . something that might work for the physicans maybe doesn’t work for hospitals or maybe something that…

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It’s time for the “Top Read” articles of the last 30 days

By Funeral Director Daily / November 15, 2023 /

  October turned out to be an unusual month at Funeral Director Daily.  After a slow methodical climb over a few years to reaching 18,000 monthly page views, the blog upped its count 62% in one month to a record of 30,143 page views!!!  However, that was because we found out what sitting at the…

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Park Lawn 3rd Quarter sounds familiar

By Funeral Director Daily / November 15, 2023 /

    Last week Park Lawn Corporation reported their 3rd Quarter 2023 financial results.  Much like we found with Carriage Services, we found that Park Lawn Corporation (PLC) was able to increase total revenues but struggled to turn those increased revenues into greater Net Income for the quarter.   PLC reported a quarterly revenue increase…

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An ongoing debate with cemeteries: Community assets for enjoyment or sacred spaces for the deceased?

By Funeral Director Daily / November 14, 2023 /

    There is no doubt that with the advent of rising cremation in our society cemeteries are used less and less, as a percentage of all deaths,  by families as places of permanent memorialization.  However, there is still a large group of families that “do” select a space in a cemetery for the permanent…

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Carriage Services sees Revenue increase, Net Income decrease for 3rd Quarter comparables

By Funeral Director Daily / November 13, 2023 /

      Carriage Services reported 3rd Quarter 2023 financial numbers last week in their 3Q 2023 Report that you can access here, and in that report they showed Total Revenue growing to $90.5 million for the quarter and Net Income dropping to $4.6 million for the same period.   That compares to 3Q 2022…

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Navy promotes first woman mortician to Senior Chief

By Funeral Director Daily / November 10, 2023 /

      Sometimes we have to be reminded of how wide reaching a career in mortuary science can be.  I’ve been an advocate of mortuary schools not only training students to become competent morticians but of also asking them to teach Financial Literacy and Business Economics so that those who begin as embalmers and…

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Will the “tailwinds” soon be back for death care M&A activity?

By Funeral Director Daily / November 9, 2023 /

  Going back to this August article from Donnelly Financial Solutions they believe that merger and acquisition activities were low earlier in 2023 because, at least in part, “Rising interest rates made it unappealing to borrow money. Inflation shifted company focuses elsewhere.  (and) Global volatility also swayed companies to press pause on M&A activity.” Nonetheless,…

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SCI execs give some insight to the “state of the business” in quarterly earnings call

By Funeral Director Daily / November 8, 2023 /

    Service Corporation International (SCI) reported 3rd Quarter financial numbers for 2023 last week which we highlighted in Monday’s edition of Funeral Director Daily.  Today, we perused the company’s earnings call of last week to try to find some insight into the questions those in the profession are asking at this point in time.…

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“Both Sides Now”

By Funeral Director Daily / November 7, 2023 /

      When I served on the Board of Regents for the University of Minnesota it was the first and only board representing the citizens of my state that I had the privilige to govern on.  With that privilige I also felt a huge obligation to make sure that I heard “both sides” of…

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