“Affordability” is a buzz-word in the consumer vernacular at this time.  And, unfortunately if you are in the funeral home or cemetery business, that relates down to the thinking a consumer does when looking at the cost of funeral or cemetery services at the time of need.

 

Lately in looking for material for articles for Funeral Director Daily I’ve noticed more and more articles in the public realm about the cost and affordability of funeral and cemetery services.  Here’s just a couple that I’ve came across recently:

 

1. Why so many families are struggling to pay for for funerals in 2026 — 9 warnings signs and 5 solutons.  SavingAdvice.com
2. The cost of dying:  How rising funeral and life expenses leave families struggling long after goodbye.  WBIR TV – Knoxville, TN

 

It’s probably fair to say that if families are worrying about paying for necessary services that they are leaving options they might normally purchase on the table because of a perception about the inability to pay for them.  I’m also guessing that it is also fair to say that the grief work that needs to be done because of the death gets delayed because of fears about the costs.

 

Recently, I’ve learned of a product that gives funeral homes another tool to help these families both in finances and peace of mind.  That product is Family Shield Credit and as their website explains, “With Family Shield Credit, families can borrow funds to cover funeral expenses — from the funeral service to family travel to the post-service luncheon — and everything in between.”  You can access their website here.

 

While Family Shield Credit is a product that can give families resources to pay for services that it might prefer, it is also a product that can serve other purposes for families.  One of the factors that I find interesting about Family Shield Credit is that even if the resources to pay are not needed it can be used to simply “give the family time” to make decisions and get through the funeral or memorial process and then make final decisions on how they will pay for the funeral.

 

That’s because Family Shield Credit has no pre-payment penalties which allows families the ability to decide how to pay for the funeral and other related costs — insurance proceeds, personal funds, cash, or other methods — after the services are over and the family is organizing the decedent finances.  As a matter of fact according to Family Shield, 24% of loans are used for gap financing and 29% of loans are paid off within 90 days. . . . . and, again according to Family Shield, all at financing costs more efficient that using credit cards.

 

So, in addition to reducing stress for your clients about upfront payments to the funeral home, Family Shield will offer time – with payment plans from 36 to 60 months to pay in full, and will offer credit amounts between $2,500 and $25,000 for funeral and related expenses.

 

All of those reasons are reasons to offer Family Shield Credit to your client families and then if you couple that with the thought that it is a “non-recourse” quick payment to the funeral home and, according to Family Shield, enhances a family’s spend at the funeral home by 30%, it is difficult for me to see a reason why you would not want this product in your tool chest of help offerings to a family.

 

Funeral Director Daily take:  I think Family Shield Credit is a big improvement in what abilities I had available to me for family credit when I was a funeral director.  We had some programs like this but they all came with “recourse” — if the client didn’t pay the loan payments, the funeral home had to pay at least part of the sale back to the financing company.

 

And, it was difficult for families to qualify for the necessary funds being loaned out.  Family Shield Credit requires an approximate FICO score of 650 to qualify which means that 76% of the American public would theoretically qualify for these loans.

 

Finally, in today’s world “cash is king” so anything that a funeral home can do to move a recievable to cash, in my opinion, is good for the funeral home.  It appears to me that Family Shield Credit can help your funeral home do that.

 

Here is the website of Family Shield Credit.

 

More news from the world of Death Care:

• Lincoln County’s Andrea Delap selected for prestigious NFDA Meet the Mentors program.  Elk Valley Times (TN)
• Death can be an “Environmental Disaster”.  Some Texans are choosing a greener path.  Texas Monthly (TX)
• True North Trust launches preneed planning sales partner program for Maine funeral homes.  PRLog (ME)

 

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