Funeral costs

[RiffRaff]

5 minutes ago, ivan edake said:

Every time the postman comes he seems to bring me warning leaflets about the ever increasing cost of funerals,all urging me to take out a funeral plan.The latest one to come today says funerals will cost over £8000 in 2020.What a rip off, the funeral directors are taking the mick and laughing all the way to the bank. I know thousands of people are having to pay for expensive funerals on the weekly simply because they are made to feel obliged to pay for it..But why is all this necessary?.Whilst i appreciate some people will want to give their loved ones a good send off many people cannot afford to pay for a funeral so I fail to see why they should have to.When someone dies a death certificate should be issued and that is all that should be necessary,relatives could then have a get together to remember the deceased.As far as I know nobody is legally obliged to pay for anybodies funeral, but if one is arranged then whoever arranges it has to pay for it, unless the cost can be taken out of the deceased's assets.

Had the Co-Op for my father-in-law's funeral a couple of months ago.  Nothing "OTT", just the hearse, a couple of cars and family flowers only.  One oddball thing that we overlooked was an extra charge to have laddo's pacemaker removed : £168 on top of the bill, which ended up around the £5000 mark, so your warning leaflets might not be so far off. Another cost that you might not take into account is an obituary notice in The Sheffield Star. Again, nothing impressive - in fact, they managed to mess it up - but that in itself wobbled about the £180 mark.  What - thankfully - was included was the cramatorium costs, but you're not far off a grand for their service.

I've heard about a "direct funeral" in the meantime, which is a no-frills, very basic job - no service, no funeral home, etc. but even that is a couple of grand apparently.  

[chocki]

I'm definitely leaving my body to science. Thanks for the links. I'll get onto it next week

[ivan edake]

6 minutes ago, RiffRaff said:

Had the Co-Op for my father-in-law's funeral a couple of months ago.  Nothing "OTT", just the hearse, a couple of cars and family flowers only.  One oddball thing that we overlooked was an extra charge to have laddo's pacemaker removed : £168 on top of the bill, which ended up around the £5000 mark, so your warning leaflets might not be so far off. Another cost that you might not take into account is an obituary notice in The Sheffield Star. Again, nothing impressive - in fact, they managed to mess it up - but that in itself wobbled about the £180 mark.  What - thankfully - was included was the cramatorium costs, but you're not far off a grand for their service.

I've heard about a "direct funeral" in the meantime, which is a no-frills, very basic job - no service, no funeral home, etc. but even that is a couple of grand apparently.  

Yes a relative has just arranged a basic funeral for her husband and it cost £2400 and she is paying on the weekly , she is over 70 years old.Who on earth wants to land themselves in this amount of debt at that age? Many people work hard  and don't even know what £2000 looks like,they have difficulty making ends meet all their life thanks to low wages and the tory policy of robbing the poor to feed the rich,then they are forced into even more debt.The whole funeral industry needs a thorough ,in depth investigation into its rip off activities.

[chocki]

It would be great if more people left their body to science, that'd pee funeral directors off

[Anna B]

1 minute ago, chocki said:

It would be great if more people left their body to science, that'd pee funeral directors off

I believe the teaching hospitals have been inundated with offers of bodies for medical research, and now have more than they can cope with, and won't be taking any more for the foreseeable future.

[Padders]

20 minutes ago, Anna B said:

I believe the teaching hospitals have been inundated with offers of bodies for medical research, and now have more than they can cope with, and won't be taking any more for the foreseeable future.

 I wonder why...…...

[altus]

The Competition and Markets Authority have been investigating increases in funeral prices.

Quote

The CMA report found:

• The cost of essential elements have risen by more than two-thirds in a decade
• That is three times the rate of the rise of prices in general, as measured by inflation
• Those on the lowest incomes could face funeral costs that amount to nearly 40% of their annual outgoings
• That is more than the amount spent on food, clothing and energy combined in a year

The regulator said that these price rises did not appear to be justified by the equivalent rise in providers' own costs or matched by improvements in the quality of service.

 

[ivan edake]

1 hour ago, altus said:

The Competition and Markets Authority have been investigating increases in funeral prices.

 

And as usual nothing will be done about it.Everybody connected with the funeral industry is laughing all the way to the bank and the government is perfectly happy as it has a permanent influx of money.Both know there will never be any redundancies and dying will never go out of fashion.The only thing people can do is to flatly refuse to pay for anything to do with a funeral.As far as I know ,at present nobody is legally obliged to pay for a funeral unless they actually order one.

[Waldo]

1 minute ago, ivan edake said:

And as usual nothing will be done about it.Everybody connected with the funeral industry is laughing all the way to the bank and the government is perfectly happy as it has a permanent influx of money.Both know there will never be any redundancies and dying will never go out of fashion.The only thing people can do is to flatly refuse to pay for anything to do with a funeral.As far as I know ,at present nobody is legally obliged to pay for a funeral unless they actually order one.

What are the alteranatives though? Also, what legal requirements for relatives regarding corpse disposal?

[ivan edake]

38 minutes ago, Waldo said:

What are the alteranatives though? Also, what legal requirements for relatives regarding corpse disposal?

As far as I know councils have a legal responsibility to dispose of the body.