Business
A recent report (November 2025) from the State of New York Department of Health with the results of an audit “which covered April 2019 through November 2023, concluded that the state Department of Health and the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene must improve oversight and coordination to address significant…
I came across this recent article from USA Today titled “Americans are going into debt over death. Here are affordability tips.” Reading that article led me to a survey and results from Debt.com and another article, that you can access here, titled “The Financial Toll of Grief: More than 1 in 3 Americans took…
Amy Cunningham is a friend of mine. She was a writer/editor who has become a funeral director and she has teased me that I was a funeral director who has became a writer/editor with Funeral Director Daily. This second career for Ms. Cunningham has brought her to the forefront of a growing movement…
I grew up in the very homogeneous community of Alexandria, Minnesota. From this Wikipedia article you can see that the city at the time of my growing up had a population of a little over 6,000. Today, according to the same Wikipedia article the community’s “metropolitan area” – those that live, work, and/or attend…
In today’s world we have begun to realize that the stress of certain employment, including being a funeral director, can have adverse effects on one’s physical and mental health. To that end, it is probably important that one has a hobby or other interest that can take his or her mind off the constant…
With the advent of increased private equity ownership in the Death Care business there are not a lot of public companies to draw information from that you can compare with your own funeral home. Quite frankly, the only two public companies where I seem able to find “comparable information” with locally owned funeral firms…
The streaming, recording, and re-watching of Death Care memorial events is becoming more and more a staple of what consumers are now expecting from their Death Care event professional. And much like any new technology there are bound to be breakthroughs in how that service is provided as we move forward. Earlier this…
We’ve now moved a few days into the month of December. It’s hard to believe that the plans you put into place for the 2025 Business Year are now coming into the stretch run. Hopefully, your profit numbers are exceeding what you expected them to be with, not only your wise planning, but…
It is not surprising that at the same time we are seeing consumer confidence erode in the U.S.A. that we are also finding some statistical data to tell us that funeral client families are more often coming up short with funding to pay their Death Care obligations. Statistics are somewhat difficult to find on…
Matthews International is a company that in 2025 received over 50% of its revenue from what they call their “Memorialization” segment. That segment consists of Aurora Casket, Matthews cremation products, and a complete line of cemetery products and markers. During the past calendar year Matthews International also acquired Death-care oriented Dodge Company to…
