Death care stocks, StoneMor Partners and Carriage Services, both components of the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI), had postive movements last Friday which lifted their companies stock price and market capitalization. Carriage Services reported Year End earnings for 2017 last week and we at Funeral Director Daily commented that the company “keeps chugging…
Carriage Services, an American death care industry consolidator, again teased investors with some good results coupled with some items that they could improve on when they reported their end of year 2017 results last week. In a press release from the company that you can read here, Chief Executive Officer Mel Payne stated, “After eight…
A jury in San Antonio has awarded a couple $8 million after finding the Mission Park Funeral Chapels and Cemeteries negligent in the loss of the their daughter’s body before she was to be cremated, according to an article in the Insurance Journal that you can read here. Sharlotte and Timothy Mott, parents of Julie…
Two funeral homes, one in Colorado and one in Utah, have been charged with unlawful acts according to articles about the funeral homes that were published recently. Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors of Montrose, Colorado has been issued a cease and desist order from the State of Colorado for “multiple and willful violations of the Mortuary…
By a vote of 65-33 the West Virginia House passed on Wednesday their Indigent Funeral Bill that will now move on to the state’s Senate. The somewhat conroversial bill reduces the price paid to funeral directors to $1000 per service from the current payment of $1250. However, the bill also names disposition by cremation as…
BUSINESS
Hollywood Forever’s “High-Rise” mausoleum and “Premium” products may be the future of cemeteries
This information (with photos) from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announces the opening of their recently completed Gower Mausoleum. Here’s a paragraph from the cemetery’s recent announcement: “Hollywood Forever is honored to announce the…
Content planning to boost a funeral home’s online presence
Boosting Your Funeral Home’s Online Presence: An Action Plan for Content That Engages and Builds Trust In today’s digital world, a funeral home website is far more than a static brochure. It’s the…
Can independent funeral home operators undercut “wannabe” national cremation providers on price?
The question posed in the headline is interesting. What is happening in Great Britain may be a precursor of what could happen in North America about the billing amount to consumers for the…
FINANCE
Pure Cremation’s private equity owner putting the business up for sale
I learned through an article from Sky News and in this article from KillBait that Epiris, the private equity firm that acquired London area-based Direct Cremation provider Pure Cremation just over two years ago,…
Milestone Funeral Partners adds funeral home acquisitions
According to the Milestone Funeral Partners website, which you can access here, and information placed on social media, the Maine-based funeral home operator and consolidator added four funeral home businesses to their number in the…
Another acquisition by Park Lawn Corporation
Maybe there is something to the ongoing prediction that a whole lot of funeral homes will be changing hands in the next 3 to 5 years. Barely after we were able to get…
REGULATIONS
Veteran Cemeteries will continue with burials. . . but what is open and closed on a government shutdown
Tomorrow is the last day of the federal government’s fiscal year. That is not necessarily a big deal except that the new federal budget year begins on Wednesday and as I write this on…
Indiana Court: “Death Doula” does not need a funeral director license
According to this issue of the Indianapolis Star an Indiana court of appeals ruled in late August that the State of Indiana “violated the First Amendment rights of a Fort Wayne “death…
Funeral Directors are heroes
The beginning of a recent article on the ASD Blog, authored by Jessica Farren, had a quote without, to my knowledge, an author’s acknowledgement. I will post it here with no acknowledgement…
CEMETERY
Hollywood Forever’s “High-Rise” mausoleum and “Premium” products may be the future of cemeteries
This information (with photos) from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announces the opening of their recently completed Gower Mausoleum. Here’s a paragraph from the cemetery’s recent announcement: “Hollywood Forever is honored to announce the…
Park Lawn adds Memorial Gardens in Taos
According to this press release from Park Lawn Corporation, the funeral home and cemetery consolidator added what they call their Taos Memorial Gardens adjacent to their existing DeVargas Funeral Home in Taos, New Mexico.…
Green Burials. . . . . .The Resistance
Minnesota funeral director Scott Mueller is a proponent of “Green Burials”. Mueller makes a comment in this recent article from the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin titled “As interest in green burials grows, so does…
CREMATION
Pure Cremation’s private equity owner putting the business up for sale
I learned through an article from Sky News and in this article from KillBait that Epiris, the private equity firm that acquired London area-based Direct Cremation provider Pure Cremation just over two years ago,…
Can independent funeral home operators undercut “wannabe” national cremation providers on price?
The question posed in the headline is interesting. What is happening in Great Britain may be a precursor of what could happen in North America about the billing amount to consumers for the…
Green Burials. . . . . .The Resistance
Minnesota funeral director Scott Mueller is a proponent of “Green Burials”. Mueller makes a comment in this recent article from the Rochester (MN) Post-Bulletin titled “As interest in green burials grows, so does…
PRENEED
Preneed companies emerge as funeral home lending sources
Morgan Stanley, a global financial services firm that provides a wide range of products and services, including investment banking, wealth management, consumer banking, and brokerage services, recently made this comment in an article, “Life…
Co-op Funeralcare increases “Funeral Plan” sales over 17% despite cyberattack
An April cyberattack which you can read about here probably cost the parent company of Great Britain’s largest funeral home operator, Co-op Funeralcare, about a US$ 107 million profit swing but didn’t seem to…
Acquiring client families — “Any Which Way You Can”
As so often happens in my world I’ve had some real life and/or businesses experiences or discussions in the last week or ten days that has made me think about Death Care. And,…
PRODUCTS
Hollywood Forever’s “High-Rise” mausoleum and “Premium” products may be the future of cemeteries
This information (with photos) from the Hollywood Forever Cemetery announces the opening of their recently completed Gower Mausoleum. Here’s a paragraph from the cemetery’s recent announcement: “Hollywood Forever is honored to announce the…
News for the Profession
Sunset continues to redefine their process of finding assets for families. They recently announced that they have a new website that makes the search for assets even easier. Sunset is a free service…
Titan Casket “keeps on keeping on”. . . . .and growing
Trying to be a “BTC” (Business to Consumer) casket company has been tried before and even with great effort the cause was difficult. However, the people at Titan Casket must relate to the Curtis…
