August 8, 2024 • 19 mins
Tipene Funerals, of television show The Casketeers fame, is under fire because one of its funeral directors allegedly swindled her grieving clients and put their dead relatives in plastic rubbish bags instead of the coffins they had paid for.
It was only revealed when bodies in a public mausoleum were disinterred, and grieving families discovered what had happened.
Funerals and the loss of a loved ones are already an emotional time for families, and this case has highlighted not only the high level of trust involved, but also the growing cost of funerals - with recent information highlighting the rising cost of burials and cremations across the country.
Today on The Front Page, we’re joined by NZ Herald journalist Raphael Franks, who started the investigation into Tipene Funerals, before hearing from Funeral Directors Association of NZ Chief Executive, Gillian Boyes, about the costs and trust involved in dealing with our loved ones.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer: Paddy Fox
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Kiota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald, Tip
and Air Funerals of television show The Caskatier's fame is
under fire because one of its funeral directors allegedly swindled
(00:26):
her grieving clients and put their dead relatives in plastic
rubbish bags instead of the coffins they paid for. It
was only revealed when bodies in a public mausoleum were
disinterred and grieving families discovered what had happened. Funerals and
the loss of a loved one is already an emotional
(00:48):
time for families, and this case has highlighted not only
the high level of trust involved, but also the growing
cost of funerals. We'll discuss that aspect a little later,
but first on the Front Page, we're joined by Enzad
Herald journalist Raphael Franks, who started the investigation into this case.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Raphael, who is.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
The funeral director at the center of this scandal and
what has she been accused of doing?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Her name is Fiona Bekolitch. She's been accused of swindling
her grieving clients by wrapping their dead relatives in plastic
bags instead of the coffins that the families had paid for.
And now more has come out since the investigation was published,
As it turns out there are two other complainants. She's
also accused of tricking a client into paying money for
(01:41):
a post mortem COVID test. Now the Ministry of Health
has said there's not a requirement that does not exist.
She also allegedly took cash from a family that was
supposedly for the burial, but Auckland Council followed up with
the family for an unpaid bill. So it seems Becolitch
has taken the money and gone. If you want a
bit of an explainer as well, the real rub with
(02:01):
this first allegation was that when a body is interred
in amusoleum, the council requires that there be an in
a casket inside the wooden casket, and they require that
for health reasons, environmental reasons, they require a hermetically sealed
casket made of zinc or some other metal like this.
So that was the casket that was not present. So
(02:22):
the families had paid for that. That was a three
thousand dollar cost for that in a casket. So they
first discovered it years after their relatives were actually buried.
They discovered it after Cyclone Gabrielle when theusoleum was damaged,
and of course when the bodies were disinterred, the families
were all present and it was a really shocking discovery
for them when they saw their relatives in those bags.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, why has it taken so long for this to
be made public?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Well, the affected families, they really believe that this has
been swept under the rug. Now. They haven't come forward
because they've told me that they feel a great sense
of shame, a huge embarrass that this has happened to
their family, their relatives. So they have been really reluctant
to come out, but they've just felt, as I say,
(03:09):
it's been swept under the rug for too long. They
really wanted it out there and they want to warn
people of you know, what Bacolitch is potentially up to.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
How have Francis and Kayora Tipenaier responded to what's happened here?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So they've acknowledged Backolitcher's actions. They haven't detailed exactly what
they know of what she's done, but they have acknowledged
it and they've apologized to those people who've been affected.
They're really quite distressed themselves, and they have offered some
conversation to some.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Families and what if police had to say, are they
going to be any consequences for Backolitcher's actions.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Francis and Coyota did make a report to the police
about Backlitch's alleged behavior, and we learned earlier this week
that police had actually abandoned that investigation. Now I heard
from Senior Sergeant Craig Bolton and he told me that
police had abandoned the investigation as there was insufficient evidence
to look into it. However, today it has passed on
to the Auckland City Criminal Investigation Branch. Detective and Speaktor
(04:07):
Glenn Baldwin is now on the case and they've reopened
it due to the new claims that have come out.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Thanks for joining us, Raphael.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Oh, thanks Chelsea, It's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
This Herald investigation has come after numerous media reports into
the rising cost of dying that is putting more of
a financial burden on families. The Funeral Directors Association has
released stats showing that burial and cremation costs to councils
have risen fifty percent in the last year to discuss
(04:47):
their findings and what's behind the rise. We're joined now
by Chief Executive of the Funeral Directors' Association of New Zealand,
Gillian Boys. Well, then, if you had to put a
figure on it, how much does the average funeral cost
and what exactly are people paying for?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Here we are always a little bit reluctant to talk
about averages because it does vary so much depending on
what you want and what part of the country you're in.
But you know, in terms of a range, it could
be anything from a few thousand to fifteen thousand dollars
or even more so, as it can really vary quite hugely.
(05:26):
And the reason it varies so much and in terms
of what you're getting for it. If you want to
have a burial, the burial costs are significantly more than
chremation costs. If you want to have a lot of
people come along, you're obviously providing them with some catering
and you need a venue for that, and you probably
want to do something like a slideshow, and you want
to do a whole lot more thing. So all of
(05:48):
those things ed up, and it also takes more of
the funeral director's time so the funeral director's fee will
go up as well. But look, if you want to
just do something really simple and have a cremation, just
go and view your loved one and say a few
special words, then that's significantly less. So yeah, everything huge
range there, and we can do something to fit whatever
(06:10):
your family's needs are to make it meaningful.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Looking at some stats provided by your organization, there seems
to be a massive disparity across the country, not only
in the cost of the funeral but in price rises. Firstly,
why do costs in general vary so much, say over
seventy two hundred dollars for a burial in New Plymouth,
but only around twelve hundred in.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Topor Yeah, so those costs are controlled by council, and
you'd need to really ask the local council why they
charge what they do. But I guess we'd imagine that
land costs vary in different councils, and the cost of
servicing the burial grounds alter as well. So in some
of the areas where there have been really quite significant
(06:52):
jumps and cost we've been told there's been a changing contractor.
But yeah, if those are costs, say that are controlled
by the council. When you work with a funeral director,
they will typically include those costs in the one bill,
so that you're not talking out money here, there and everywhere.
Often people think that the funeral costs that much money,
but actually that bit, which is your burial or cremation cost,
(07:16):
is a separate cost.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
What have been some of the contributing factors around costs
increasing over the last year. I know you mentioned there's
some council contracting and.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Such in terms of the costs that the funeral director incurs. Obviously,
you know, we're in a bit of a cost of
living crisis at the moment, so the salary costs for
the staff at the funeral home have probably gone up.
The materials costs will have gone up, so everything from
the cost to manufacture caskets going up to chemicals and supplies.
(07:47):
The catering costs have probably gone up because they're running
businesses as well, and their food costs have gone up.
So yeah, look at it. It is across the board.
It's no one thing that you can put your finger on.
But yet we tend to highlight the council bit of
that each year just so that people know that that
one is a core contributor because it is such a
big part of the total cost of a funeral.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Julia Marie Maggs died suddenly in hospital after spending years
struggling with physical and mental health issues. Husband Dave, who
lost his job earlier this year, was desperate to give
her the funeral. She wanted the Steinson family from Auckland's
north shore set up to give a little page to
raise money, aiming for fifteen thousand dollars to cover the
funeral expenses depending on the plot. Debbie told The Herald
(08:34):
they were looking at between eighteen thousand and twenty thousand
for a burial and funeral. Julia would need a custom
coffin a larger size with more handles for poor bearers.
We don't know how much we've got to work with,
Debbie told the Herald, which is making it really hard.
She'd tried to withdraw some of the money in her
Kiwi saver. They had to embalm jewels and postpone the funeral,
(08:54):
she explained, until they knew how much money they had
to work with.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I guess in the industry of dying, if we can
call it that, Do you think there are some players
in the industry who actually prey upon people and try
and upsell. I'm thinking of a time when Maya Nana
died last year and she was to be cremated, and
my poppa was upsold a coffin. I think it ended
up costing the coffin alone five thousand dollars. What do
(09:26):
you think of those kind of practices?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So what we say to our member firms is that
you need to spell out the cost to the family.
So we have standards that people who join our organization
must meet. In one of those standards is providing a
detailed written cost estimate in advance of the funeral. So
one of the really good reasons for doing that is
once you've got the estimate in front of people, you
(09:50):
can go through line by line and work with a
family and say, look, the coffin that you chose, for instance,
in your example is five thousand dollars, but we do
have some other options available. If that means that's contributing
to a cost overall that you can't afford, so do
you want to talk about some other options? And you
can do that across all of those areas. You know,
(10:10):
there can be reasons why people want to spend more
on particular elements. The coffin or casket as we call it,
as you know, your final gift to the family. And
I know that sounds a bit marketing, but you know,
actually having something that represents who they are it can
be really important to a family. You know, if it's
been a builder who's always worked with wood, they might
(10:31):
want a solid water casket, and those are typically more expensive.
But what we try and encourage our members to do
is to make sure that people are paying more for
things when it's meaningful to them and as important as
part of their grieving, rather than treating it like a
sales job. And you know, you ask getting my members
and they hate that sales word because they don't see
(10:52):
themselves as salespeople. They really see themselves as being there
to support the family, to have a ceremony that's meaningful
for them.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Do you think people in the industry do try and upsell?
Are those people in the industry as well?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well? Look at the end of the day, you know,
if you get some more things in, it's better for
your business. So you can understand why that temptation is there.
But I'd be really disappointed if I heard any of
our members we're doing it for that reason. As I say,
I think a lot of the time they are genuinely
meeting the needs of their families when they're recommending something
that costs more because the family has said I want,
(11:27):
you know, more people there, or or I want you know,
better catering, or I really want these particular flowers and
they cost more. So as long as our members are
saying to people, you do understand that that means the
total cost is this, then I think it's not upselling,
it's helping the family have something that means something to them.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Would you recommend people look at funeral insurance as an example,
and is there any kind of ideal age to start
investing or saving for your funeral? I guess it's something
that we probably don't want to be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah. So look, my life job before here was working
for the Financial Markets Authority, which is the financial markets regulator,
and just before I left, we did a review of
funeral insurance and found that that could be a pretty
poor value product because often people end up putting in
more than they end up using, or if you stop
paying your premiums, you know, your cover disappears. So I'm
(12:21):
not a massive fan of funeral insurance and know the
insurance companies have tied it up there act, but it's
not something that I'm a fan of. We offer a
prepaid funeral trust. So how that works is you put
your money in and then it's used for your funeral
and if there's anything left over, it goes back to
your family. And that sort of works sort of similar
(12:43):
to insurance in terms of you can put a lump
summon or you can pay a bit in at a time.
So something like that where you know you're not going
to risk losing the money, I think is a better
deal for people in terms of what age. One of
my other roles that uf ME was encouraging people to
get into key Wesavor, and that was a hard enough conversation.
(13:03):
So I probably wouldn't try selling funeral trusts or prepaid
funeral plans to any young people because most people are
not thinking about this. But it is very common for
people who are going into respigitual care to make the
decision at that point. It can be a really useful
thing to set the money aside if you've got conflict
(13:26):
within the family, because then it's locked away in a
trust and you know your family can't touch it, and
you know that you'll need to taken care of. So
probably it's at those big life events as you get
older that most people would think about paying for their
funeral in advance.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Is there anything that could be done to bring these
costs down? Do you think the approval of alternative methods
save burial such as water cremation could help reduce those costs?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So what a cremation is an interesting one, and that
at the moment in the buriers and cremations at it's
only burial in the ground and cremation by fire that's approved.
So we're waiting to see from the Ministry of how
they decide to treat water cremation. And probably the key
driver for introducing that is to provide more choice for
(14:12):
families and to provide something that might be more environmentally
sustainable rather than cost because with water cremation, like a
traditional cremation, you've still got sex cost to put the
deceased into the machine and have the machine running and
so on. So I'm not sure that it would necessarily
be cheaper, but it is definitely an alternative in might
(14:33):
be something that people prefer.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
It is quite simply a process whereby a human body
is placed into a machine, really a finally engineered piece
of equipment, which is filled in with water with a
little alkalie within it. It's heated and placed under pressure
and or for hours plus the human body is reduced
(14:56):
to its skeletal remains. The bones are then reduced to
a form of powder, and the relatives gat back those remains.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
In terms of generally how do you get costs down?
I guess something to think about is that funeral practice
is a private practice. So in healthcare, obviously there is
public health care, but in death care, there's no public
desk care if you like. So it is private businesses
running funerals, and so to a degree there's always going
(15:28):
to be costs that are very hard to get down
to an absolute bottom line because the businesses have to
operate and pay their staff and make a living. So
the best thing for people to do, as to say,
is to really just work with the funeral director and say, look,
this is my budget or these are my constraints financially
(15:49):
that I have, and what can you do to help
me work within that? And you know, most funeral directors
will be really open to that conversation and will work
really hard to make sure that there's something that's really
be sure that you can do to remember a loved
one without having to go on to debt.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And I suppose that will change from family to family
as well. Hey, I've already told my parents the last
remaining one will be sent down a raft down a
river if I could. But it does change, right, There
are people that like that sentimentality of a funeral.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Hey, yeah, And look, I think what the trend is
in funerals now is for people to personalize it much
more so. You know, the traditional going to the church
and having the long eulogies and so on, you know,
is much less common. And you know, we have members
running funerals on the beach and parks. I've been to
a few in my local theater group. You know, risas
(16:41):
are really popular pubs, all sorts of different places. It's
what's special to that person and to that person's family.
And I suppose that's a point to mate, really, is
that a funeral isn't for the person who died. And
I think sometimes we get caught up with trying to
respect people's wishes, but forgetting that we've got needs ourselves
and we saw this in COVID when people couldn't have
(17:02):
a funeral. And you talk to many people now who's
loved one died during that time, and they'll say, look,
I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I didn't
get a chance to see all the pictures and hear
all the stories and get together with the family and
huglem and mourn their persons. So it is about the
people who are left behind, not the people who have died.
(17:23):
So it's about thinking what's right for the people left behind.
And you know sending your last parent down in the
raft works for you, then that's right for you. But
if that was their wish, think about you know what
you need is I guess what our advice is, how.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Do you feel being in your industry and reading something
or hearing stories of loved ones being put in plastic
rubbish bags instead of the coffins they paid for.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
From an industry perfective, We ever, really committed to ensuring
that all funeral directors handle the deceased with utmost respects.
So when I heard that story, I was really disappointed
to hear it, and I can only imagine the distress
for the family. We work really hard as an industry.
It's a yucky topic desk, isn't it for most people?
And there's lots of unpleasant aspects to the work that
(18:13):
our members do. And the only way that we can
continue to get the respect from our families is to
do it at the utmost level of professionalism and make
sure that we really are treating the family left behind
but also the deceased body with respects. So off the
back of that story, we've done reminders to our members
around how you handle the technical requirements around a more
(18:37):
solium burial. They're different to a normal burial, and so
that's the sort of value that an association can provide
to it members, but also the sort of value that
working with a member whom brings to New Zealanders and
you know the funeral home concern. We're not members of
our association unfortunately, so perhaps they just didn't know what
(18:57):
the technical requirements were.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Thanks for joining us, Jillian. That's it for this episode
of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzidhrald dot co dot
enz The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and
sound engineer Patti Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the
(19:24):
front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
Kiota. I'm Chelsea Daniels and This is the Front Page,
a daily podcast presented by The New Zealand Herald, Tip
and Air Funerals of television show The Caskatier's fame is
under fire because one of its funeral directors allegedly swindled
(00:26):
her grieving clients and put their dead relatives in plastic
rubbish bags instead of the coffins they paid for. It
was only revealed when bodies in a public mausoleum were
disinterred and grieving families discovered what had happened. Funerals and
the loss of a loved one is already an emotional
(00:48):
time for families, and this case has highlighted not only
the high level of trust involved, but also the growing
cost of funerals. We'll discuss that aspect a little later,
but first on the Front Page, we're joined by Enzad
Herald journalist Raphael Franks, who started the investigation into this case.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Raphael, who is.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
The funeral director at the center of this scandal and
what has she been accused of doing?
Speaker 3 (01:21):
Her name is Fiona Bekolitch. She's been accused of swindling
her grieving clients by wrapping their dead relatives in plastic
bags instead of the coffins that the families had paid for.
And now more has come out since the investigation was published,
As it turns out there are two other complainants. She's
also accused of tricking a client into paying money for
(01:41):
a post mortem COVID test. Now the Ministry of Health
has said there's not a requirement that does not exist.
She also allegedly took cash from a family that was
supposedly for the burial, but Auckland Council followed up with
the family for an unpaid bill. So it seems Becolitch
has taken the money and gone. If you want a
bit of an explainer as well, the real rub with
(02:01):
this first allegation was that when a body is interred
in amusoleum, the council requires that there be an in
a casket inside the wooden casket, and they require that
for health reasons, environmental reasons, they require a hermetically sealed
casket made of zinc or some other metal like this.
So that was the casket that was not present. So
(02:22):
the families had paid for that. That was a three
thousand dollar cost for that in a casket. So they
first discovered it years after their relatives were actually buried.
They discovered it after Cyclone Gabrielle when theusoleum was damaged,
and of course when the bodies were disinterred, the families
were all present and it was a really shocking discovery
for them when they saw their relatives in those bags.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yeah, why has it taken so long for this to
be made public?
Speaker 3 (02:49):
Well, the affected families, they really believe that this has
been swept under the rug. Now. They haven't come forward
because they've told me that they feel a great sense
of shame, a huge embarrass that this has happened to
their family, their relatives. So they have been really reluctant
to come out, but they've just felt, as I say,
(03:09):
it's been swept under the rug for too long. They
really wanted it out there and they want to warn
people of you know, what Bacolitch is potentially up to.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
How have Francis and Kayora Tipenaier responded to what's happened here?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
So they've acknowledged Backolitcher's actions. They haven't detailed exactly what
they know of what she's done, but they have acknowledged
it and they've apologized to those people who've been affected.
They're really quite distressed themselves, and they have offered some
conversation to some.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Families and what if police had to say, are they
going to be any consequences for Backolitcher's actions.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Francis and Coyota did make a report to the police
about Backlitch's alleged behavior, and we learned earlier this week
that police had actually abandoned that investigation. Now I heard
from Senior Sergeant Craig Bolton and he told me that
police had abandoned the investigation as there was insufficient evidence
to look into it. However, today it has passed on
to the Auckland City Criminal Investigation Branch. Detective and Speaktor
(04:07):
Glenn Baldwin is now on the case and they've reopened
it due to the new claims that have come out.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
Thanks for joining us, Raphael.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
Oh, thanks Chelsea, It's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
This Herald investigation has come after numerous media reports into
the rising cost of dying that is putting more of
a financial burden on families. The Funeral Directors Association has
released stats showing that burial and cremation costs to councils
have risen fifty percent in the last year to discuss
(04:47):
their findings and what's behind the rise. We're joined now
by Chief Executive of the Funeral Directors' Association of New Zealand,
Gillian Boys. Well, then, if you had to put a
figure on it, how much does the average funeral cost
and what exactly are people paying for?
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Here we are always a little bit reluctant to talk
about averages because it does vary so much depending on
what you want and what part of the country you're in.
But you know, in terms of a range, it could
be anything from a few thousand to fifteen thousand dollars
or even more so, as it can really vary quite hugely.
(05:26):
And the reason it varies so much and in terms
of what you're getting for it. If you want to
have a burial, the burial costs are significantly more than
chremation costs. If you want to have a lot of
people come along, you're obviously providing them with some catering
and you need a venue for that, and you probably
want to do something like a slideshow, and you want
to do a whole lot more thing. So all of
(05:48):
those things ed up, and it also takes more of
the funeral director's time so the funeral director's fee will
go up as well. But look, if you want to
just do something really simple and have a cremation, just
go and view your loved one and say a few
special words, then that's significantly less. So yeah, everything huge
range there, and we can do something to fit whatever
(06:10):
your family's needs are to make it meaningful.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Looking at some stats provided by your organization, there seems
to be a massive disparity across the country, not only
in the cost of the funeral but in price rises. Firstly,
why do costs in general vary so much, say over
seventy two hundred dollars for a burial in New Plymouth,
but only around twelve hundred in.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Topor Yeah, so those costs are controlled by council, and
you'd need to really ask the local council why they
charge what they do. But I guess we'd imagine that
land costs vary in different councils, and the cost of
servicing the burial grounds alter as well. So in some
of the areas where there have been really quite significant
(06:52):
jumps and cost we've been told there's been a changing contractor.
But yeah, if those are costs, say that are controlled
by the council. When you work with a funeral director,
they will typically include those costs in the one bill,
so that you're not talking out money here, there and everywhere.
Often people think that the funeral costs that much money,
but actually that bit, which is your burial or cremation cost,
(07:16):
is a separate cost.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
What have been some of the contributing factors around costs
increasing over the last year. I know you mentioned there's
some council contracting and.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Such in terms of the costs that the funeral director incurs. Obviously,
you know, we're in a bit of a cost of
living crisis at the moment, so the salary costs for
the staff at the funeral home have probably gone up.
The materials costs will have gone up, so everything from
the cost to manufacture caskets going up to chemicals and supplies.
(07:47):
The catering costs have probably gone up because they're running
businesses as well, and their food costs have gone up.
So yeah, look at it. It is across the board.
It's no one thing that you can put your finger on.
But yet we tend to highlight the council bit of
that each year just so that people know that that
one is a core contributor because it is such a
big part of the total cost of a funeral.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Julia Marie Maggs died suddenly in hospital after spending years
struggling with physical and mental health issues. Husband Dave, who
lost his job earlier this year, was desperate to give
her the funeral. She wanted the Steinson family from Auckland's
north shore set up to give a little page to
raise money, aiming for fifteen thousand dollars to cover the
funeral expenses depending on the plot. Debbie told The Herald
(08:34):
they were looking at between eighteen thousand and twenty thousand
for a burial and funeral. Julia would need a custom
coffin a larger size with more handles for poor bearers.
We don't know how much we've got to work with,
Debbie told the Herald, which is making it really hard.
She'd tried to withdraw some of the money in her
Kiwi saver. They had to embalm jewels and postpone the funeral,
(08:54):
she explained, until they knew how much money they had
to work with.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I guess in the industry of dying, if we can
call it that, Do you think there are some players
in the industry who actually prey upon people and try
and upsell. I'm thinking of a time when Maya Nana
died last year and she was to be cremated, and
my poppa was upsold a coffin. I think it ended
up costing the coffin alone five thousand dollars. What do
(09:26):
you think of those kind of practices?
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So what we say to our member firms is that
you need to spell out the cost to the family.
So we have standards that people who join our organization
must meet. In one of those standards is providing a
detailed written cost estimate in advance of the funeral. So
one of the really good reasons for doing that is
once you've got the estimate in front of people, you
(09:50):
can go through line by line and work with a
family and say, look, the coffin that you chose, for instance,
in your example is five thousand dollars, but we do
have some other options available. If that means that's contributing
to a cost overall that you can't afford, so do
you want to talk about some other options? And you
can do that across all of those areas. You know,
(10:10):
there can be reasons why people want to spend more
on particular elements. The coffin or casket as we call it,
as you know, your final gift to the family. And
I know that sounds a bit marketing, but you know,
actually having something that represents who they are it can
be really important to a family. You know, if it's
been a builder who's always worked with wood, they might
(10:31):
want a solid water casket, and those are typically more expensive.
But what we try and encourage our members to do
is to make sure that people are paying more for
things when it's meaningful to them and as important as
part of their grieving, rather than treating it like a
sales job. And you know, you ask getting my members
and they hate that sales word because they don't see
(10:52):
themselves as salespeople. They really see themselves as being there
to support the family, to have a ceremony that's meaningful
for them.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Do you think people in the industry do try and upsell?
Are those people in the industry as well?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
Well? Look at the end of the day, you know,
if you get some more things in, it's better for
your business. So you can understand why that temptation is there.
But I'd be really disappointed if I heard any of
our members we're doing it for that reason. As I say,
I think a lot of the time they are genuinely
meeting the needs of their families when they're recommending something
that costs more because the family has said I want,
(11:27):
you know, more people there, or or I want you know,
better catering, or I really want these particular flowers and
they cost more. So as long as our members are
saying to people, you do understand that that means the
total cost is this, then I think it's not upselling,
it's helping the family have something that means something to them.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
Would you recommend people look at funeral insurance as an example,
and is there any kind of ideal age to start
investing or saving for your funeral? I guess it's something
that we probably don't want to be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah. So look, my life job before here was working
for the Financial Markets Authority, which is the financial markets regulator,
and just before I left, we did a review of
funeral insurance and found that that could be a pretty
poor value product because often people end up putting in
more than they end up using, or if you stop
paying your premiums, you know, your cover disappears. So I'm
(12:21):
not a massive fan of funeral insurance and know the
insurance companies have tied it up there act, but it's
not something that I'm a fan of. We offer a
prepaid funeral trust. So how that works is you put
your money in and then it's used for your funeral
and if there's anything left over, it goes back to
your family. And that sort of works sort of similar
(12:43):
to insurance in terms of you can put a lump
summon or you can pay a bit in at a time.
So something like that where you know you're not going
to risk losing the money, I think is a better
deal for people in terms of what age. One of
my other roles that uf ME was encouraging people to
get into key Wesavor, and that was a hard enough conversation.
(13:03):
So I probably wouldn't try selling funeral trusts or prepaid
funeral plans to any young people because most people are
not thinking about this. But it is very common for
people who are going into respigitual care to make the
decision at that point. It can be a really useful
thing to set the money aside if you've got conflict
(13:26):
within the family, because then it's locked away in a
trust and you know your family can't touch it, and
you know that you'll need to taken care of. So
probably it's at those big life events as you get
older that most people would think about paying for their
funeral in advance.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Is there anything that could be done to bring these
costs down? Do you think the approval of alternative methods
save burial such as water cremation could help reduce those costs?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So what a cremation is an interesting one, and that
at the moment in the buriers and cremations at it's
only burial in the ground and cremation by fire that's approved.
So we're waiting to see from the Ministry of how
they decide to treat water cremation. And probably the key
driver for introducing that is to provide more choice for
(14:12):
families and to provide something that might be more environmentally
sustainable rather than cost because with water cremation, like a
traditional cremation, you've still got sex cost to put the
deceased into the machine and have the machine running and
so on. So I'm not sure that it would necessarily
be cheaper, but it is definitely an alternative in might
(14:33):
be something that people prefer.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
It is quite simply a process whereby a human body
is placed into a machine, really a finally engineered piece
of equipment, which is filled in with water with a
little alkalie within it. It's heated and placed under pressure
and or for hours plus the human body is reduced
(14:56):
to its skeletal remains. The bones are then reduced to
a form of powder, and the relatives gat back those remains.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
In terms of generally how do you get costs down?
I guess something to think about is that funeral practice
is a private practice. So in healthcare, obviously there is
public health care, but in death care, there's no public
desk care if you like. So it is private businesses
running funerals, and so to a degree there's always going
(15:28):
to be costs that are very hard to get down
to an absolute bottom line because the businesses have to
operate and pay their staff and make a living. So
the best thing for people to do, as to say,
is to really just work with the funeral director and say, look,
this is my budget or these are my constraints financially
(15:49):
that I have, and what can you do to help
me work within that? And you know, most funeral directors
will be really open to that conversation and will work
really hard to make sure that there's something that's really
be sure that you can do to remember a loved
one without having to go on to debt.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
And I suppose that will change from family to family
as well. Hey, I've already told my parents the last
remaining one will be sent down a raft down a
river if I could. But it does change, right, There
are people that like that sentimentality of a funeral.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Hey, yeah, And look, I think what the trend is
in funerals now is for people to personalize it much
more so. You know, the traditional going to the church
and having the long eulogies and so on, you know,
is much less common. And you know, we have members
running funerals on the beach and parks. I've been to
a few in my local theater group. You know, risas
(16:41):
are really popular pubs, all sorts of different places. It's
what's special to that person and to that person's family.
And I suppose that's a point to mate, really, is
that a funeral isn't for the person who died. And
I think sometimes we get caught up with trying to
respect people's wishes, but forgetting that we've got needs ourselves
and we saw this in COVID when people couldn't have
(17:02):
a funeral. And you talk to many people now who's
loved one died during that time, and they'll say, look,
I didn't get a chance to say goodbye. I didn't
get a chance to see all the pictures and hear
all the stories and get together with the family and
huglem and mourn their persons. So it is about the
people who are left behind, not the people who have died.
(17:23):
So it's about thinking what's right for the people left behind.
And you know sending your last parent down in the
raft works for you, then that's right for you. But
if that was their wish, think about you know what
you need is I guess what our advice is, how.
Speaker 1 (17:40):
Do you feel being in your industry and reading something
or hearing stories of loved ones being put in plastic
rubbish bags instead of the coffins they paid for.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
From an industry perfective, We ever, really committed to ensuring
that all funeral directors handle the deceased with utmost respects.
So when I heard that story, I was really disappointed
to hear it, and I can only imagine the distress
for the family. We work really hard as an industry.
It's a yucky topic desk, isn't it for most people?
And there's lots of unpleasant aspects to the work that
(18:13):
our members do. And the only way that we can
continue to get the respect from our families is to
do it at the utmost level of professionalism and make
sure that we really are treating the family left behind
but also the deceased body with respects. So off the
back of that story, we've done reminders to our members
around how you handle the technical requirements around a more
(18:37):
solium burial. They're different to a normal burial, and so
that's the sort of value that an association can provide
to it members, but also the sort of value that
working with a member whom brings to New Zealanders and
you know the funeral home concern. We're not members of
our association unfortunately, so perhaps they just didn't know what
(18:57):
the technical requirements were.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Thanks for joining us, Jillian. That's it for this episode
of the Front Page. You can read more about today's
stories and extensive news coverage at enzidhrald dot co dot
enz The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and
sound engineer Patti Fox. I'm Chelsea Daniels. Subscribe to the
(19:24):
front page on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts,
and tune in on Monday for another look behind the headlines.
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