PRINTDeath Toll
The cost of crossing over
Photo Illustration by Matt Cloud
When a loved one passes, the last thing that comes to mind is money. However, it's a significant part of the process that can be better addressed ahead of time.
December 3, 2009 | 12:00 a.m. CST
In the midst of the emotion and grief that comes with the death of a loved one, the last thing anyone wants to think about is money. However, cost has a significant impact on the final celebration of a person’s life.
Although Patricia Wixom celebrated her late husband’s life with family and friends on Aug. 1, the funerary arrangements had been in process a while longer, even before his passing on July 8. Robert Wixom had arranged his cremation with Memorial Funeral Home prior to his death and asked that his remains be buried at his family plot in Arkansas. “It did make it much easier,” Patricia says. “I was surprised.”
Not many people are as prepared for death as the Wixoms. Death often comes unexpectedly and catches family and friends unprepared during an already emotional time. People don’t know the wishes of the deceased individual and are left to wonder, “Is this what he (or she) wanted?” To proverbially dump salt in the wound, funerary arrangements can really rack up the dollars.
Columbia has at least eight funerary institutions with more in the surrounding area. Prices vary just as much as the ways Columbians can choose to handle the death of a loved one.
Clay Vogl, a licensed funeral director and embalmer for Parker Funeral Service & Crematory, says there is a lot of unrecognized planning and preparation involved in his business. “Funerals don’t just happen,” he says.
The details that need to be handled include the transportation of the remains, preparation and submission of the death certificate, submission of an obituary, any necessary transfer permits or notices, flowers and then arranging the actual services or lack thereof and additional details specific to the family’s situation and wishes. Funeral arrangements can cost anywhere from about $1,000 to tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the method and options chosen.
Many funeral homes take care of the payment with a starting fee that covers staffing and the handling of these tasks. Within that fee are additional options and attached prices that can be added at the family’s discretion according to their plans.
How the remains are to be handled must be determined before a budget can be determined. Although the traditional decision is between burial and cremation, organ donation or gifting one’s body to medical research are also options possible in Columbia.
Burial
Burial tends to be an expensive option, but it doesn’t always have to be costly, Vogl says. With caskets, vaults, flowers, headstones and services to decide upon, the amount of money spent is basically up to the wishes of the people involved.
The cost fluctuation for a burial revolves around the casket. Caskets can be made from primarily wood, steel, stainless steel or bronze. At Parker Funeral Service & Crematory, a casket can be purchased for as little as about $1,000. But caskets can be very elaborate and in turn pricey. “You could spend $20,000 if you wanted to,” Vogl says of a solid copper model made to shine as if it were gold. The type of wood and the grade and gauge of the steel affect the price of the casket significantly. The thicker the steel, the rarer the wood, the more intense the workmanship, the more expensive the casket. But Vogl says the caskets most people opt for are priced between $2,700 and $4,000.
Funeral homes are required to work with caskets purchased elsewhere. Buying a casket through a third party is an option, though not necessarily a cheaper one. For example, Costco.com sells a small variety of caskets. At the cheapest end, it offers an 18-gauge steel casket for $924.99, including standard shipping and handling. The more expensive 32-ounce copper option costs $2,599.99. Expedited casket shipping can add several hundred dollars to the order. Online, Walmart’s cheapest casket, also an 18-gauge steel model, is $895 before shipping fees and sales tax. The most expensive option, bronze, is $2,899 before sales tax and shipping costs. Caskets cost around $100 to ship.
Another decision with a price tag is whether there will be a viewing of the deceased. Apart from the costs of renting a location to hold visitation services, which vary, most funeral homes require the body to be embalmed before viewing. Parker Funeral Service & Crematory charges $750 for an embalmment, but some other local funeral facilities simply include it in the cost of a funeral service.
There is some controversy regarding whether to embalm, but most funeral homes require embalmment for realistic viewing results, disinfection and general preservation purposes. However, because there is no law that requires embalmment in the state of Missouri, this generality is established at the discretion of each funeral home. Some people forego embalming and in turn a public open-casket viewing, not just to expedite the burial process but to reduce the chemicals that are eventually released back into the ground from an embalmed burial. “I hate to use the term, but it’s a little ‘greener’ option,” Vogl says. “It just makes the breaking down process a little smoother.” Although this decision eliminates the traditional visitation or viewing, it does make the funerary process less expensive.
It is a decision that must be made quickly. Embalming is best done within five to six hours after death. After that time, the realistic quality of the viewing results decreases due to blood coagulation and the general breakdown that starts once body processes have shut down.
For those wishing to donate organs, this time issue can interfere with the best embalming result. Organ donation generally takes between 24 and 48 hours, much longer than the five or six hours optimal for embalmment. If the choice has been made to donate organs, embalmment can certainly still happen, but a compromise of the viewing experience is a strong possibility. Organ donation can also add additional costs to the overall funerary arrangements because of the potential addition of transportation costs.
Costs also accumulate for procedures beyond the basic embalmment; cosmetic application to and dressing of the body for viewing can add a couple hundred dollars to the bill. At Parker Funeral Service & Crematory, hairstyling alone costs $45.
Services involving a shortened viewing before the funeral are generally less expensive than those with the more traditional evening-before-the-funeral visitation, and burials with a small graveside service are usually still cheaper.
For example, at Heartland Cremation and Burial Society in Columbia, a facility that provides what they call “affordable burial options,” the cost of a burial with a funeral service and one-hour visitation immediately prior to the funeral is $4,295, but a burial with funeral service at the graveside is $3,295.
Another potential burial cost deals with vaults, which function to protect the casket and the grounds. The requirement or lack of burial vaults is left to the discretion of the cemeteries. At Parker Funeral Service & Crematory, vaults range from about $1,000 to $13,125. Vogl says the average vault sold in Columbia is about $2,300.
Prearranging a funeral is generally a money-saving option, and it allows a person to set ...
Cremation
If the traditional burial is forgone, cremation is another option. By its very nature, cremation can be much simpler than burial and therefore often less expensive. As with burial, cremation options vary widely and so do prices.
The most basic option is usually referred to as a “direct cremation,” which means there were no services and the body was simply cremated and the remains laid to rest according to the wishes of the deceased or his or her family. When the deceased is cremated, the body does not need to be embalmed, which eliminates costs required for funeral services or viewings. A direct cremation at its most basic is the least expensive way to bury a loved one.
An overhead fee for a direct cremation in Columbia generally includes the transfer of the body to the crematory, completion of the legal paperwork, obituary submission, cremation process and return of ashes in a temporary container. The cheapest local fees for a direct cremation fall between approximately $1,000 at the Heartland Cremation and Burial Society and $1,400 at Parker Funeral Service & Crematory.
Not all funeral homes can cremate in-house because they don’t have the proper equipment, but there are at least four crematories in Columbia. Parker Funeral Service & Crematory is one such facility, and Vogl says they perform cremations for many surrounding funeral homes that still provide their patrons with cremation services; they just need to use a third party for the actual cremation.
Just because a family opts to cremate doesn’t mean that there can’t be a funeral or memorial service. Similar to a burial, cremation services require payment for using the venue. Families can host a visitation and viewing prior to a cremation, as long as they are willing to pay for embalming and a rented casket for viewing the body. At Parker Funeral Service & Crematory, there is one basic casket available for rent that costs $1,375.
Urns, like caskets, come in a range of prices. A single urn can be purchased to house the entire remains of the deceased, or a popular alternative is for several family members to each purchase an urn so the remains can be divided. Called keepsake urns, they cost about $34. Other urns begin at around $100 and increase depending on material, style and craftsmanship. Vogl says at Parker Funeral Service & Crematory, urns start at $104. Like caskets, third parties provide urns as well. Walmart’s options range between $94.05 and $214.05, and Costco’s urns are similarly priced, from $49.99 to $199.99.
Although Robert Wixom had prearranged his cremation and burial place, the Wixom family still had choices to make. Patricia had to communicate with Memorial Funeral Home about the transportation and cremation. Robert’s children notified the Arkansas cemetery and arranged for his burial at the plot that had been in the family since at least 1965. They also had to arrange for a stone to be erected. Back in Columbia, the Columbia Friends Meeting planned Robert’s memorial meeting in keeping with his Quaker faith, and Patricia notified friends and family while organizing the order of the meeting, held at Trinity Presbyterian Church. “I think we were pretty well prepared,” she says of the funerary planning.
Body Donation
An alternative to burial or cremation, the MU School of Medicine’s Gift of Body Program accepts bodies for scientific, medical and educational research and training.Bodies donated to the program are preserved through a process different from the typical funerary embalmment because they can be utilized for up to two years, sometimes longer.
Such a post-mortem plan has a few stipulations. The body must be intact at the time of donation. This renders bodies after autopsies and major organ donations, with the exception of eye donations, unacceptable for the Gift of Body program. Bodies must also be free of certain communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, hepatitis or AIDS and must not weigh more than 230 pounds. Bodies not processed quickly enough following the time of death are not eligible either.
To enroll in the program, one must complete the appropriate paperwork prior to death and tell family members of the arrangement so they can alert the program upon the donor’s death. A power of attorney can also sign the donation forms after the donor’s death. The only costs are transporting the body to the MU morgue, filing the appropriate paperwork for the death certificate and a light embalming or refrigeration of the remains if they cannot be transported to the morgue within 24 hours. These arrangements can still be handled by a local funeral home, typically for less than $1,000.
After use by the school, the Gift of Body program will cremate the remains, and they can be returned to the family or buried at the Memorial Park Cemetery, all free of charge.
Details
Prearranging a funeral, though not the most fun party to plan, is generally a money-saving option. To plan and prepay for a funeral ahead of time does not cost extra, and it locks in prices against any increases that might happen between the planning process and the actual death.
Many people who arrange their own funerals do so to make sure their affairs will be in order and to relieve their family of some of the organizational and financial burden. It also ensures that the last hurrah is handled as anticipated prior to death.
As much or as little of a funeral can be planned as is desired. A casket can simply be prepurchased, or everything from start to finish can be outlined exactly as the “star” of the funeral would like.
It is easy to forget about the little costs incurred for funerals. Obituaries are usually prepared and submitted to local newspapers after being written or outlined by the family. Obituaries run in the Columbia Tribune for 60 cents a word, with the first 75 words free. The Columbia Missourian runs obituaries or “life stories” for free. Another detail, flowers, can swing from about $100 to $700 or more locally depending on the exoticism, quantity and arrangement.
Vogl estimates the average cost of a traditional burial funeral in Columbia at around $10,000 on the expensive side — from beginning to end. He says the cremation route averages around $6,000 with complete services and around $1,400 for basic direct cremation. Donating organs could cost more than donating your body as a cadaver because after organ donation, the family still takes care of the body, whereas the Gift of Body program will pay for the cremation and burial process.
Death will always be difficult to accept, but preplanning the way the Wixoms did can help families financially and emotionally. Chances are you’ll still spend at least a grand, but easing the stress of scrambling to make arrangements and worrying about what the deceased wanted is priceless.
Twitter
Facebook
