Preneed

Funeral Directors Life adds 48th state of operation

By Funeral Director Daily / October 11, 2024 /

    Earlier this week we learned that Funeral Directors Life (FDL), based in Abilene, Texas,  was approved to sell preneed insurance in the state of Virginia.  As you can read from this press release, that announcement, following an earlier announcement making Michigan a legal Funeral Directors Life state, now makes Funeral Directors Life preneed…

Anthem Partners, Premiere Preneed, NGL form strategic relationship

By Funeral Director Daily / October 10, 2024 /

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…

The Federal Funds interest rate came down, what does that mean for you?

By Funeral Director Daily / October 3, 2024 /

    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…

Prelude receives an investment from Cortado Ventures

By Funeral Director Daily / September 27, 2024 /

  The last time we mentioned the upstart preneed company Prelude in Funeral Director Daily was this article back in March 2024 when we first heard of them.  We mentioned that we didn’t know much about them but from their LinkedIn references and website it appeared that they were in the business of helping individual…

Last wills, charitable giving, and preneed

By Funeral Director Daily / September 18, 2024 /

      Central Co-op of Great Britain is an interesting company.  They are a company with a history of over 100 years and operate in the grocery, legal services, floral, and funeral business.  According to this Wikipedia page, the company operates over 1,000 funeral homes and is now the largest provider of Death Care…

Carriage Services: Strategies driving improvements

By Funeral Director Daily / August 15, 2024 /

  I’m one that believes you can learn something from seeing what the public companies in funeral service are doing.  When I was active with my funeral home in the business I would read their quarterly reports and look at whatever comments were made during the companies quarterly earnings call transcripts. . . . .Even…

What’s on the backside of this interest rate/inflation environment for funeral homes?

By Funeral Director Daily / August 1, 2024 /

    Funeral home owners and managers in the United States, and around the world, have had a lot on their business management plates in the 2020’s decade.  Along with the continual increasing use of cremation and direct cremation instead of casketed burials came the pandemic, then inflation, which when measured by the Consumer Price…

It’s July 29. . . Will Park Lawn Corporation be going private? What does that mean for Homesteaders Life?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 29, 2024 /

    It suprised many in the Death Care community when this press release came out late on Monday, June 3, announcing that a new company, made up of preneed provider Homesteaders Life and private equity firm Birch Hill Equity Partners, would be seeking to acquire publicly-operated funeral home and cemetery business Park Lawn Corporation.…

Moving preneed thoughts to the consumer mind

By Funeral Director Daily / July 23, 2024 /

    I think it is a pretty well established fact that if a funeral home can get families to talk about what they want to have done at their eventual death the funeral home has a much better chance to pre-arrange that family into some type of financial arrangements to be used at the…

Will Carriage Services be next?

By Funeral Director Daily / July 10, 2024 /

    It’s been less than a month since a partnership of Homesteaders Life and private equity firm Birch Hill Partners announced their intention to acquire 100% of public funeral home and cemetery operator Park Lawn Corporation.  As a matter of fact we are still about three weeks out from the July 29 stockholder vote…