On the subject of funeral plans – your thoughts are invited
Like everyone else who responded to the Competition and Markets Authority’s consultation on whether to make a market investigation reference for the funeral market, we received an e-mail last week. The e-mail invited us to share our views on whether the said MIR should also cover the delivery of funeral services obtained via a pre-paid […]
One of ours
We’re a bit late to the party, as this came out last week, but we were prompted by a comment from a regular reader on another blog post (thanks Andrew!!) We were delighted to see one of our Recommended Funeral Directors featured in a documentary on ITV. Poppy’s Funerals were described as ‘female-led funeral directors out to buck several trends in male-dominated industry’. We like […]
Fact checking required?
Apparently, according to an article in today’s Times, ‘funeral companies have been told to make fees transparent’. No they haven’t. Read the entire piece. It begins with this statement: ‘Funeral directors have been ordered to publish their full fees online after concerns about the soaring cost of services.’ No they haven’t. Later in the piece […]
Those pesky funeral plans…
Here’s a salutary tale for anyone who is seduced into buying a funeral plan in order to ‘get on with enjoying life’, or ‘protect your family from future costs and worry’ or to avail themselves of the ‘peace of mind that your funeral costs and arrangements have been taken care of’, or whatever the latest […]
Level playing field?
Here’s a curious thing. The deadline to submit responses to the Competition and Markets Authority’s consultation on their proposal to make a market investigation reference was 5pm on Friday 4th January. This is specified on page 132 of their Interim Report, in bold font: ‘Such comments should be provided no later than 5pm on 4th […]
Time to speak up
Dear Reader Are you connected to funerals in any way? Are you somebody who has an interest in what goes on in funeralworld? Have you had to arrange a funeral, or had to think about funeral arrangements for someone close to you? Or do you work in the funeral sector? Have you seen or heard […]
Well said Louise!
The CMA interim report on the funeral industry is taking time to digest across funeralworld. It’s not surprising, it’s a chunky document. And it’s possibly proving quite indigestible for some, particularly the PR teams at Dignity, Co-op and Funeral partners. The essential conclusion is – the funeral sector is not functioning well. Competition is not […]
‘Serious concerns in the funeral sector’ identified by CMA
The Competitions and Markets Authority are proposing a major funerals probe after identifying serious concerns in the funeral sector. It’s a long read – 133 pages – find the full interim report on the Funerals Market Study page here (scroll down for ‘Interim report and consultation’. We publish this morning’s press release in full below: […]
Funeral Markets Study – research findings
Last week, the Competition and Markets Authority published the findings of the consumer research undertaken as part of their Funeral Markets Study. It makes interesting reading. The research was commissioned from Research Works and Ipsos MORI as part of the attempt to understand the behaviour, experiences and decision-making of people who had recently engaged the services […]
Funeral prices
Our recent blog post about Simplicity Cremations, the offshoot of Dignity Funerals, elicited this response from a disapproving reader: ‘This rattled me. “Dignity’s prices are too high and they are the cause of funeral poverty. Big bad dignity”. “Dignity lower their prices and offer a low cost cremation option. Big bad Dignity”. Seems to me that someone […]
