Funeral costs continue to rise and prepaying guards against inflation

Sep. 22--Forty percent of Jason Smith's business comes from pre-paid funerals.

And that number is steadily increasing, said Smith, owner of Smith Funeral & Cremation Care in Westover.

"Pre-paid funerals are absolutely a good thing," he said. "Each year, the cost of funerals and cremations increase by some means. Pre-paying, either in a lump sum or by one of the flexible payment plans we offer, ensures that your wishes are carried out to your specifications, and that the cost of the services and merchandise you selected in advance is guaranteed against inflation."

A funeral with all the extras, including a viewing, can cost $7,000 or higher in West Virginia. Nationally, that figure can be anywhere from $8,000 to $10,000, according to parting.com, a website that tracks funeral and cremation costs nationwide. That does not include a burial site or cemetery plot.

"In our time in business over the last four years, we have had a very steady increase in the percentage of families who return to us for pre-need arrangements, and also with new client families who come in to take care of pre-arrangements, or clients who have transferred their existing pre-arrangements to our care," said Smith, whose funeral home handles around 125 funerals a year.

Rising costs and safeguards

Like anything, the cost of funerals has increased and will continue to do so. In the 30 years between 1986 and 2017, funeral expenses rose 227%, Consumer Price Index numbers showed. The largest increase in that time was for a casket, which can cost as much as $10,000 for a top-of-the-line model.

While funeral expenses can vary depending on the area of the country you live in, the main funeral costs according to parting.com are:

-$1,500 for funeral director's services

-$2,300 for the casket

-$500 for embalming

-$500 to use the funeral home for the actual service

-$1,000 for grave site

-$600 to dig the grave

-$1,000 for grave liner or burial container

-$1,500 for headstone

These costs do not include additional items such as the cost for a minister or priest, flowers or a death notice in the local newspaper.

There are several ways to finance a funeral in West Virginia: Either pay for everything upfront at the time of need; or, for the sake of financial planning, you can pay a funeral home ahead of time in a lump sum, installments or with an insurance policy. That money is then put into a trust account with the funeral home as the trustee. Interest earned by the money goes toward covering future cost increases. Leftover funds are returned to the person who paid for services. If a person moves, in most cases the pre-paid account can be transferred.

"Labor is my biggest expense," said Dan Hastings, owner of Hastings Funeral Home Inc. in downtown Morgantown. "We're on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week."

Funeral homes in West Virginia are required by law to send a copy of the agreement -- called a pre-need contract -- to the state Attorney General, who regulates the industry.

About one-third of all funerals are arranged for and paid ahead of time, the state said.

"We find that pre-paying for services are good because it helps the family know what type of services and merchandise they want and it also alleviates the financial expenses from the next of kin," said Kate McCulla Slaughter of McCulla Funeral Home in Morgantown. "It usually saves money for the family since the funeral home charges are frozen at the current rate at time of paid-in-full payment. It also helps protect a person's assets when qualifying for Medicaid when entering a nursing home."

That was the case for a Morgantown woman who arranged for a pre-paid funeral for her elderly mother through McCulla Funeral Home.

The woman, who did not want to be identified for privacy reasons, said she began thinking about a prepaid funeral for her mother around the time she had to place her in a personal care home.

"We did not know how long she would be there," said the woman, adding the personal care home cost $12,000 a month. The funeral ended up costing $10,000.

"I was relieved," she said. "It gave me peace and calmness. By doing it ahead of time, I was able to carry out her wishes. It was all very pleasant."

Cremation option

Cremation is now becoming an option for many, though it is not as popular in West Virginia as in other areas of the country. Dan Hastings, who owns an off-site crematorium, said cremation accounts for 30% to 35% of his business.

"We are a rural area," he said.

The National Funeral Directors Association said the cremation rate exceeded 50% for the first time in 2016 and is growing at a rate of 1.6% annually. In West Virginia, the cremation rate is expected to reach 42.8% by next year and nearly 52% by 2025, according to the association. The West and the Northeast have the highest rates of cremation.

"Our direct cremation rate is only 17%," Jared Jenkins of the Fred L. Jenkins Funeral Home in Morgantown said in an email. "Most of our families still choose to have some type of service in addition to cremation. I do believe the cremation rate will continue to rise. Main reasons for the continued rise in cremation rates would include cost, the perceived environmental impact, an increasingly transient population, declining traditional religious objection and changing consumer preferences. In short, baby boomers are the energy behind the increasing trend for cremation rather than traditional earth burial."

The first crematorium in the United States was built in 1876 in Washington, Pa., by F. Julius LeMoyne, a physician.

Cremations typically cost 40% less than a traditional funeral with a burial. And like funerals, there are options. For example, a person might opt to have a viewing and a cremation, a rental casket is typically used. When the viewing is complete, the deceased and the casket are taken to the crematorium.

The body is removed from the rented container, cremated at a temperature between 1,400 and 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit in a process that takes up to two hours to complete for an adult. The bone fragments are then pulverized, placed in a plastic bag and returned to the family.

How the ashes -- cremains -- are disposed is up to the family. The Catholic Church, for example, encourages people to bury the ashes in a cemetery or inter them in a mausoleum. The rule of thumb is that the weight of a person's ashes is equal to what he or she weighed at birth, according to the Cremation Association of North America, an industry group.

In West Virginia, there are no laws where you can't keep or scatter ashes, because they are rendered harmless by the cremation process. But, check with the landowner.

Also, federal law prohibits dropping anything from the air that might cause harm to property or individuals. Lastly, if the deceased wanted their remains thrown into the ocean, the federal Clean Water Act requires this be done at least three nautical miles from shore. For water burial at a lake, or river, the agency managing the body of water must grant permission.

If none of that works, then cremains have been turned into jewelry, used to make ink for tattoos, planted as part of a tree, made into an explosive or even turned into a vinyl record, according to the Mother Nature Network.

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