I’m a fan of Warren Buffett and his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Matter of fact, I enjoy reading his annual shareholder letter because it just doesn’t tell how his businesses are doing, it explains to the reader why he is in those businesses and how he makes money for his shareholders. Back in 1936 a gentleman by the name of Leo Goodwin from Washington, D.C., became convinced that auto insurance could be standardized and sold without agents to the general public. […]
Life insurance rates, at least for the time being, are holding stable regardless of the excess deaths due to Covid-19 in 2020. A recent press release from Policygenius, that you can access here, says that “The May index shows life insurance pricing stability, despite an increase in the U.S. death rate evident in data recently released by the Center for Disease Control”. Policygenius, in their release state that “the U.S. death rate increased by nearly 16% from 2019 to 2020 […]
StoneMor, Inc. released its 1st Quarter financial results on May 13 and with it announced that they had completed their private offering of $400 million in Senior Notes. There seems to be no doubt that the refinancing and operational results reported in the May 13 report have lifted the spirits of the company. Here’s what CEO Joe Redling said in the 1Q 2021 report, “Earlier this week, we completed a transformational transaction for the Company by fortifying our balance sheet […]
CUNA Mutual Group announced last week in this press release that it intends to acquire the preneed funeral business of global conglomerate Assurant. We told you late last year, in this article, that Assurant was expected to move on from the preneed business as it concentrated on other business elements. The reported purchase price by CUNA Mutual Group is $1.3 billion. According to the linked press release, “CUNA Mutual Group, a broad financial services provider, announced it has entered into […]
This article picks up on yesterday’s discussion of what could happen as more crematories are built expanding the supply of crematories in the United States. Yesterday’s discussion then went to the thought process and question of, “Will this excess capacity in cremation move cremation to a lower and lower retail cost as death care companies vie for the limited number of clients?” Shortly after I wrote that article I came to the conclusion that, even if that does happen, the […]
Funeral home owners, cemetery operators, preneed professionals. We’re the experts in the death care profession. We know the business, we understand the clientele, and we know what is good for everybody. Or do we? I’m guessing that is somewhat how the buggy whip manufacturers, horse livery operators, and sales reps in that industry thought of themselves while Henry Ford and others were going about changing the way American moved by figuring out a way to build an automobile at a […]
According to this article National Guardian Life (NGL), a mainstay in the funeral preneed insurance market, has announced that it has acquired the company Everplans. Everplans is described in the article as a digital life planning company that “helps consumers store, organize and share important documents online, and helps users get started with estate planning.” Again, according to the article, Madison, Wisconsin, based National Guardian Life branched out a few years ago by adding Long-Term Care insurance to its portfolio […]
Funeral Director Daily has a few readers in the English speaking parts of the world outside of North America. We have followers in Great Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. However, it is not too often that we get news from those regions. Today, we are bringing you three articles from various parts of the world. When we do get news from those locales, however, it is interesting to note how common the issues are between the differing countries and the […]
Some trends become tidal waves. This article from Great Britain insurer SunLife takes into account what they saw in 2020 as reported in their “Cost of Dying” report. You can access the company’s synopsis of the Great Britain death care market here. One of the findings, which is more than likely pandemic induced, but also a growing trend for the future, is that the percentage of Direct Cremations is growing rapidly. According to the report, as we read it, Direct […]
With the Christmas holiday coming up this weekend Funeral Director Daily will not be publishing on Thursday or Friday of this week. As usual, there is plenty in our industry to tell you about, but with the limited days and multiple stories we thought we would just use this afternoon to give you some teasers on articles that you may look up yourself. First of all, we bring you this information from Adidas. . even though there is no article […]
