| "You have
many choices - but you have to know enough to ask the funeral home
sales staff the correct questions – or you may not
learn about the alternatives." We've been licensed morticians, managers of funeral homes, cemeteries, crematoriums - with a combined experience of almost half a century. Now we're retired. The goal of the 'old' funeral home industry was making memories for the survivors. In the new 'Corporate Funeral-Land' - the goal has shifted to making money from the survivors - lots of money. In this new after-death world, the prime folks to please are stockholders - not families. In the name of more profits, many locations now operate with centralized 'embalming factories' that service many funeral homes. There have been numerous law suits that challenged restraint of trade arrangements to protect inflated casket/coffin retail prices (markups of 300%-500% are common). The federal government has now twice passed regulations in an attempt to level the playing field between the pros (funeral homes sales people) and the rookie buyers (the bereaved). But enforcement is scanty among the 22,000 funeral homes - and today there are even new "Sales Quotas" to make... (not a joke - click to read excerpts from the Two Manuals.) The Manuals were prepared so that Survivors - during a time of great stress in their lives - had a very simple, ready reference to help them understand what was actually happening around them. So survivors knew what alternatives they actually have to achieve the last memories of their loved one - a memory the survivors wanted (often different from the funeral home's visions) - and to do so at a fair, reasonable cost. The absence of information - of knowing exactly what you can do - can have significant impacts - both emotional and financial. During our years of practice, we've witnessed countless numbers of families in a state of numbed confusion over the death of a loved one. We've witnessed arguments between surviving children, parents, siblings about what to do - how much to spend - how to allocate last expenses financial contributions - who was going to pay - when. And because we were located in smaller towns - not a big city - frequently, we could see hurt feelings, even animosities continue for years into the future. This Last Expenses Web Portal is about helping you control and pay for the memories you want.
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