The above headline has shown up in a news story and web-site story from WHEC TV in Rochester, New York.  While attention grabbing, the news feature and story does eventually tell people that while there can be a wide variety of ranges for similar services, many times you do get what you pay for at Rochester area funeral homes and that the prices many times do reflect the product you receive.

The newscast and story is worth watching and was a report based on a survey of local funeral and cremation establishments in the Rochester, NY area by the Funeral Consumers Alliance of Greater Rochester.  Funeral directors in the area are also given space to respond to questions.

Eric van Zeilen of Murphy’s Funeral and Cremation Chapels stated, ” . . you get what you pay for and often higher priced options take more of the responsibility off the plate of the grieving family”.  He also states, ” We don’t want emotional overspending, we don’t want someone to leave and say, that’s a high price.  We also don’t want to keep them or limit them from any service options that are available.”

In closing in the article, the Rochester Funeral Consumers Alliance states that they now have forum that they will be conducting entitled, “21st Century Funeral Shopping”.

Funeral Director Daily take:  I watched the news story and read the article and I think this is a very fair representation of funeral pricing, not only in Rochester, NY, but how it may be in many communities across the country.  One thing that this article brings out is that there are lower priced options and then higher priced options which are more “high level service” in nature.  In my opinion, that distinction is many times missing when funeral price comparatives are reported.

Van Zeilen’s comment above about not wanting to limit services to families who want them is many times left out when people “funeral shop”.  He makes a great point.

I came into funeral service right when the FTC was changing from “unit” pricing such as this casket and all services for x amount of dollars to the FTC model of itemization.  It scared all of us at that time, but I believe it has not only allowed for more options for the consumer, but it has made us better business people by knowing how and where we can be profitable.

If I disagree with anything in this article it is the attention grabbing headline which does not make the distinction about levels of service in the different survey prices.  That is something that funeral directors need to stress more in price variations as Van Zeilen did.

The article also includes a table of all area funeral prices which is quite interesting.[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]