Business

Visiting non-compete agreements

By Funeral Director Daily / December 6, 2019 /

It’s been a few years since I’ve actively managed our funeral home, but this recent article from the Minneapolis Star Tribune brought me back to one of the issues that I dealt with in the hiring of employees.  That was the issue of non-compete agreements or covenants not to compete. Non-competes have historically been used…

Social help in funeral costs

By Funeral Director Daily / December 5, 2019 /

Virtually all funeral homes in the United States are profit driven.  I’m aware of one funeral home in Minnesota — in New Ulm — which is a cooperative community based funeral home.  You can see their web-site here. However, I’m guessing that over 99% of funeral homes in North America are profit driven enterprises.   Today,…

Indiana funeral home increases community involvement

By Funeral Director Daily / December 2, 2019 /

According to this article in the Kokomo (Indiana) Perspective, the Ellers Mortuary and Cremation Center was acquired by Service Corporation International in 2016.  Some feared that the acquisition would cause the Kokomo business, that had been in business since 1924, to lose its personal touch. However, according to General Manager Jaime Handy, “the acquisition has…

InvoCare accused of billing irregularities

By Funeral Director Daily / November 29, 2019 /

  Australia’s largest purveyor of death care services, InvoCare, has been accused by some of irregularities in the way that it handles its invoicing.  According to this article from Choice.com,  InvoCare routinely includes a $320, plus taxes, “administration fee” on invoices. Again, according to the Choice.com article, the administration fee functions somewhat as a “late…

Russell & Pica Funeral Homes plans 3rd location

By Funeral Director Daily / November 25, 2019 /

Russell & Pica Funeral Homes now operate out of Brockton and West Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  According to this article,  land is now being cleared for the company’s third location which will be in Lakeville. The funeral home company plans to build a 6,700 foot funeral home on a 70,134 lot across from a Walgreen’s on Bridge…

A new, hipper, choice in funerals

By Funeral Director Daily / November 25, 2019 /

Last week I learned about, what I might classify as extraordinary and possibly trend setting – if one can say that about funeral establishments – new funeral home that opened recently in London.  The business named “Exit Here” was conceived by British restauranteer Oliver Peyton and his business partner, Barry Pritchard, a third generation funeral…

New facilities around the country

By Funeral Director Daily / November 22, 2019 /

As we go into the weekend we just thought we would update our readers with some new construction going on in the death care business.  The following articles pertain to individual or family owned businesses either being started or being expanded. As we have seen many times with the ideas of proposed crematories — there…

Plenty of opportunities for women in the death care profession

By Funeral Director Daily / November 20, 2019 /

I received my Bachelor of Science degree in Mortuary Science in 1980 — in a class of about 40 males and one female.  That is just the way it was. . .there were no young women going into the business at that time.  Today, the mortuary science classes at my alma mater are about 70%…

American Entrepreneurship. . . funeral homes are a big part of it

By Funeral Director Daily / November 19, 2019 /

Monday morning I received a call from a lady I know who works tirelessly with the community’s Junior Achievement organization.  She mentioned that they were looking for some new board members and she wondered if I would be interested in serving. My first thought was, “I don’t need more board positions”.  I’ve served on a…

From the Veterans Day file

By Funeral Director Daily / November 12, 2019 /

Yesterday was Veteran’s Day across the United States and we noticed a couple of funeral related items that we thought we would pass on to our readers. First of all, we noticed how Service Corporation International’ s Dignity Memorial location in Western Michigan received some really good attention on a television talk show about pre-planning…