Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum. Here in the United States,
Speaker 1: the cost of a traditional funeral is between eight thousand
Speaker 1: and ten thousand dollars on average, and that doesn't include
Speaker 1: the price of the burial plot and other cemetery fees.
Speaker 1: A casket alone runs two thousand, five hundred dollars on average,
Speaker 1: making it the biggest single expense of saying goodbye to
Speaker 1: a loved one. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
Speaker 1: the price of caskets has skyrocketed two over the past
Speaker 1: thirty years, outpacing the inflation rate for other consumer products
Speaker 1: by more than double So why exactly do caskets cost
Speaker 1: so much? Is it simply the cost of materials or
Speaker 1: our funeral homes taking advantage of grieving customers who aren't
Speaker 1: emotionally prepared to shop around. What many people don't know
Speaker 1: is that they don't have to buy a casket from
Speaker 1: their funeral home. It's a federal law that funeral homes
Speaker 1: must accept all outside caskets, including ones they are bought
Speaker 1: online or from Costco for example. Before the article. This
Speaker 1: episode is based on how Stuff Works. Spoke with both
Speaker 1: a second generation funeral home director and the co founders
Speaker 1: of an online casket company aiming to disrupt the funeral industry.
Speaker 1: Douglas Dutch Knee is the CEO and funeral director at
Speaker 1: Knee Family Funeral Home and Cremation Services in ann Arbor, Michigan.
Speaker 1: Knee and his six sisters grew up in a home
Speaker 1: above the family business, and he and his wife purchased
Speaker 1: the funeral home from N's parents in the year two
Speaker 1: thousand and These own kids work there now too. When
Speaker 1: it comes to the price of a casket, Nie says
Speaker 1: that there are a lot of variables, which is why
Speaker 1: he says he can offer families a no frills casket
Speaker 1: for as low as nine hundred dollars to a high
Speaker 1: end casket that runs six thousand or more. The biggest
Speaker 1: differentiator is the material with which the casket is built.
Speaker 1: There are two main types of casket material, wood and metal.
Speaker 1: Nie explained, with a wood casket, you can equate it
Speaker 1: to furniture. A ma hagany, hickory, or walnut casket is
Speaker 1: going to cost far more than pine or oak. For
Speaker 1: metal caskets, the US expensive models are made of twin
Speaker 1: e gauge steel, while the pricest are constructed from semi
Speaker 1: precious metals like copper or bronze. For both wood and
Speaker 1: metal caskets, the quality and details of the craftsmanship rounded
Speaker 1: corners instead of welded, for example, will also determine the price.
Speaker 1: And then there are other considerations like the material inside
Speaker 1: the casket. A crape interior is going to be less
Speaker 1: expensive than velvet. For military burial, the family might want
Speaker 1: to customize the interior with an army or Navy seal.
Speaker 1: All of this upgrades and details can add up. Knee
Speaker 1: insists that despite the high average cost of a casket,
Speaker 1: most funeral homes carry a range of caskets to meet
Speaker 1: the budget of everyone in their community to make sure
Speaker 1: that they have something for everyone. But there could be
Speaker 1: other reasons why caskets have gotten so expensive. Josh Siegel
Speaker 1: and Scott Ginsburg are co founders of Titan Casket, an
Speaker 1: online casket retailer, and they argue that an outdated business
Speaker 1: model they call it big Casket, is to blame for
Speaker 1: the high price of most funeral home casket. It turns
Speaker 1: out the two large manufacturers, Batesville and Matthews, control of
Speaker 1: the casket distribution in the US, as Siegel said, they
Speaker 1: exclusively selled the funeral homes. Because of that structure, they
Speaker 1: mark up their caskets three and that casket monopoly is
Speaker 1: only one part of the problem, the Titan guys argue.
Speaker 1: The other part is opportunistic markup. Ginsburg said, for the
Speaker 1: most part, consumers in these situations don't shop. They go
Speaker 1: to the same funeral home they've always gone to. It's
Speaker 1: not right or wrong, it's just what people do. And
Speaker 1: funeral directors understand people don't shop, which is why they
Speaker 1: and charged twice as much for the same casket. And
Speaker 1: many Americans don't know that you have the right to
Speaker 1: supply your own casket for a loved one's funeral. The
Speaker 1: Federal Trade Commission enacted the Funeral Rule, which aimed to
Speaker 1: bring greater transparency to funeral pricing. The rule also made
Speaker 1: it illegal for a funeral home to refuse to handle
Speaker 1: a casket the client purchased from a third party retailer,
Speaker 1: which now includes online sales. A lot of grieving families
Speaker 1: simply aren't interested in shopping around for a better deal
Speaker 1: on a casket, and that's understandable. That's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why that of caskets were still purchased through funeral
Speaker 1: homes as of twenty nineteen, but companies like Titan think
Speaker 1: that if consumers knew how easy it was to buy
Speaker 1: a casket online and potentially a lot less expensive, then
Speaker 1: people would buy more caskets outside of the funeral home.
Speaker 1: Ni who is a past president of the Michigan Funeral
Speaker 1: Directors Association and is currently an at large board member
Speaker 1: of the National Funeral Directors Association, and says that funeral
Speaker 1: homes are happy to comply with the FTC's funeral rule
Speaker 1: a quote, families can choose to purchase something online and
Speaker 1: there's not an issue at all. Our business model is
Speaker 1: to provide services to families, and the casket is just
Speaker 1: one of the items that can be chosen to ensure
Speaker 1: that the services conducted the way a family wants. Besides,
Speaker 1: n points out fewer people are choosing a traditional burial anymore.
Speaker 1: According to report, the cremation rate of Americans was around
Speaker 1: fifty that year, and by traditional burial is expected to
Speaker 1: drop to just of all funerals. With cremation, the body
Speaker 1: is placed in an inexpensive plywood or cardboard container that
Speaker 1: is also consumed in the fire. By the way, have
Speaker 1: you ever wondered why undertakers are called undertakers? Back in
Speaker 1: the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the first undertakers were furniture
Speaker 1: makers who started building caskets as a sideline. They got
Speaker 1: their name by being the people undertaking the burial. Today's
Speaker 1: episode is based on the article Grave Matters Why are
Speaker 1: Caskets so Expensive? On housetof works dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Dave Rubs. The brain Stuff is production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot com, and
Speaker 1: it's produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts to my
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.