Business
Statistics tell us that over 80% of Americans live within one hour of an urban area. If the population of the USA is about 333 million then that leaves the other 20%, or almost 67 million people outside of those urban areas. I’m one of those 67 million and I love where I…
Within the last week I received my health insurance plan 2025 rates and I also paid the property and casualty insurance on my lake cabin. The health insurance premium was up 7.4% and my P&C cabin insurance also took a hike. I also was at a funeral home seminar where I heard a…
Right in the middle of the United States’ National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) annual convention in New Orleans is probably a good time to drop information from a press release that we received in mid-September. That press release, which you can access here, came from PR Newswire with information provided by Allied…
Tomorrow I’ll be on my way to the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) convention in New Orleans. I’ll spend three or four days there, see old friends, grasp new products and see innovations for the first time. This is probably true with many funeral service professionals. . . . but the older I get,…
In what is becoming a growing trend among larger funeral home operators Anthem Partners announced in late September that they had formed a strategic alliance with Premier Preneed Marketing and National Guardian Life (NGL) that they believe will help grow their preneed business. According to a statement in the press release from Jim La…
It’s been almost 100 years since Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Bill into law in 1935. And, contrary to what most people believe, there was a “Lump Sum Death Benefit” (LSDB) applied to that bill that took effect at that time. However, the original LSDB was discontinued in 1939 at…
We learned of an interesting sale/acquisition story that happened recently in Illinois. This article from the Mendota Reporter will tell you of the sale of the Merritt Funeral Home to the Unger-Horner Funeral Home. It’s interesting to note, according to the article, that the Merritt Funeral Home has been in the Merritt…
If you ask my opinion, American borrowers have been somewhat spoiled by the low interest rates that we had had for almost the last ten years. This article will tell you that from 2015 until into 2022 we never had Prime lending rates higher than 5.5% — and most of the that time…
I’ve know for some time that we are living in an “Experience” economy. Yes, even while we need to spend a larger portion of our dollars on necessities because of the inflation of the past years. . . . .the “Experience” economy has continued to thrive. Whether it is going to…
Fifty years ago services were almost all traditional casketed funerals with earth burials. Then, for the next 50 years cremation choice by the consumer started building until we now have an approximate 60% cremation rate of disposition across the United States. So, what is next? Consumers have started adding eco-friendly options to…
