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Funeral Costs – What I Didn’t Get to Say
March 19, 2008I had the opportunity to be on the
Seattle NPR Weekday
radio program this morning. The showwas hosted by
Steve Scher
with guests,
JohnEric Rolstad
of the
People’s MemorialAssociation
and
Char Barrett
of 
A SacredMoment
who performs home funerals. The showcovered three main topics: Embalming,Cremation, and Funeral Costs. If you want to getthe gist of what is happening in the Pacific Northwest, I would recommend that you have alisten to the program.To listen to the Replay visit: “
Funerals onWeekday at KUOW 94.9
”A couple things that weren’t mentioned but should be noted. The home funeral movement I feelis appropriate for those families wanting something private and under the ideal conditions. Dryice might retard decomposition, but I would question if the family was prepared to deal with purge, urination, defecation, or the more unpleasant things that funeral directors have quietlylooked after like tissue gas and maggots.I give credit to Char for carving out a niche that she is serving – her website is informative andthe families that she looks after will be the benefactors of her passion. Her website is:http://www.ASacredMoment.com.When it came to funeral costs, John, from the People’s Memorial Association, referred to its price survey of funeral homes from western and central Washington state. He stated that there issuch a wide range of prices for similar services – 300 to 400% compared to other industries thatare 10 to 20% citing Target, WalMart and Costco. Unfortunately, it was the top of the hour andthe host, Steve couldn’t see the disappointment face when I was unable to expand upon funeralcosts – but this is what I would have said:John is referring to commodities – things that do not have a qualitative differentiation in a givenmarket. Funeral services couldn’t be further away from a commodity. The flaw in their survey isthat they have requested a stripped down service to try to compare apples to apples. What aren’tconsidered are the differentiation factors like the level of service, the location and quality of facilities, and time frame and number of transfer staff dispatched to a residence, to name a few.Also, not considered in the price survey are other items such as DVD tributes, onlinememorialization, facilities, equipment, and knowledge of creating and facilitating events that arevery personalized.
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