September 2004
The Director - Features
Dispelling Funeral Cost Myths
Reports on unfair funeral prices fail to examine all factors
Though recent reports have pegged funerals as the third most expensive purchase in consumers’ lifetimes, the reality is that average funeral costs fall far below those for weddings, cars, boats, RVs, and even the cost of one year at a public university.
“To say that a funeral is the third most expensive item a person buys in life is just false,” said Jack Kynion, president of the Illinois Funeral Directors Association. “Certainly people are not spending more for funerals than they are for an education, a home, an automobile.”
While the average cost of a funeral is $5,000 to $6,000, a wedding, for example, averages $22,360. “The reason people talk about the cost of funerals is that no one wants to purchase a funeral,” said Mark Musgrove, president of the National Funeral Directors Association, Brookfield, Wisconsin. “You don’t see exposés on the high cost of weddings.”
The article, “Dispelling Funeral Cost Myths,” sets out to prove that for one of the most important events in life, a funeral is a remarkable bargain, particularly when you consider the services that come with it.
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2004 issue of
I.D. magazine and appears in
The Director with permission of the Illinois Funeral Directors Association.
