Short Stuff: The Casket Racket

And you thought we were done with talking about funeral homes. Well guess again!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the short Stuff on Josh and
there's Chuck and this is short stuff. Uh, this is
another funeral edition one um, the never Ending Death Suite,
I guess is what it's a part of. I know,
and I just want funeral directors out there who listen
to know that we don't not like you. Uh, just

(00:25):
because this episode is going to be called the casket Racket,
it doesn't mean we don't like you. But when you
look at the numbers of the price of caskets, the
markup on caskets, it is a little hard to not
think there's got to be a better way. Yeah, a
more fair, humane way that doesn't just completely rip off
the consumer. Okay, So um, I think the average casket

(00:51):
in the United States goes for about bucks, which is
a significant contributor to the overall costs of a funeral,
which can be eight to ten grand on average. That's
like a quarter or more of the total cost, just
as in the casket alone. Um. And apparently that prices
increased dramatically, Chuck, like two fifty increase over the last

(01:13):
thirty years, So you would think, like, okay, that means
that like the the casket making guild has has broken up,
and like they're they're not passing along their knowledge any longer.
The stuff that they used to make caskets have become
so rare that they we can hardly get our hands
out anymore. What else could could qualify caskets for a

(01:36):
two hundred and fifty increase uh in in price over
the years, which by the way, is twice as much
the inflation rate as the next highest item has has
grown in price over the last thirty years. So what
is it about caskets that has has made them grow
in price so much? Chuck? Well, I mean things that contribute. Certainly,

(02:00):
if you're just shopping for a casket, uh and this
isn't necessarily inflation, but if you're if you're wondering how
you spend you know, six grand on a casket. It's
a piece of it's not furniture, but like it's made
out of wood. If you want a wood when they're
also metal, ones will get into both. But if you're
looking at something made out of wood, obviously the materials
is going to be a big deal. So if you

(02:21):
want the mahogany or the hickory or the walnut casket,
it's going to cost a lot more than like the
Pine box or the oak box. Uh. If you're looking
at metal, the pricey ones are twenty gauge steel, and
you know you can also get copper or bronze and
stuff like that. I think the least pricey ones are
the twenty gauge steel, Like that's their Pine box version

(02:44):
for metal ones. Oh did I say most expensive? I
think I'm at least expensive. Sorry about that. Obviously the
copper and the bronze are gonna be the pricest ones.
But you know, then there's craftsmanship with any kind of um,
anything made by human hands. If it's got you know,
fancier stuff on it, it's gonna cost a lot more.
If the corners are all rounded instead of welded off,

(03:05):
it's going to be a lot more. So all these
things go into determining the price. But uh, and of
course what's going on in the inside as well, all
the all the fancy silks and and almost said bunting,
but like that crape interior um is gonna be less
expensive than velvet. So inside and out, the materials matter,

(03:27):
the craftsmanship matters. But and maybe we should well know,
let's go ahead say it before the break. What's really
going on is there are two main casket manufacturers in
the u S. Batesville and Matthews. They have not a monopoly,
but about a two percent share of the distribution. It's
pretty close. And they don't sell the people. They sell

(03:48):
only to funeral homes, so they mark it up by
three or four and then the funeral directors can then
mark it up as well. So that's where the money's
really going, yes, through the markup, because they have almost
a monopoly. So I say that we take that break
you're talking about, maybe lion repose for a couple of minutes,

(04:08):
and we will come back and get active again. It
sounds good, so Chuck Um. One of the reasons why

(04:52):
the two main manufacturers of caskets can mark their prices
up as because they sell directly to funeral homes, and
the reason that funeral directors can further mark those up
to whatever they want. It's because most people don't shop
around for not only a casket, but a funeral home.
They probably went to a funeral at the funeral home

(05:14):
they're using before. Maybe they've used that funeral home before
and their repeat, repeat customer. I would guess that unless
you have a really bad experience with a funeral home,
you're probably going to use the same one over and
over again because you're in the depths of grief and
you're not thinking about your bottom line or your pocketbook.
You're just trying to get through this terrible time. And

(05:37):
funeral directors know that, and they price their prices accordingly
because they have a captive customer. That's right. There's probably
one family member he's really wanting to shop around, Uncle Sal,
but Uncle Stal gets shut down, usually by the other
family members who talk about this is not the time
to cheap out. So he just loudly complains throughout the

(06:00):
he's that's right. A lot of paroled eyes, a lot
of harrumph, Oh here we go again. How much is
this guest book gonna cost? But you're right, most people
go to the same place and they know they got
you there. Uh. By the way, quick aside, the funeral home,
which I've talked about a lot across the street from me,
they were shooting a movie there yesterday. Oh really, what movie?

(06:20):
I don't know, but they changed the funeral sign. So
if you ever see a movie with a gold horse
and F and G funeral home that's across the street
from my house. You know, just based on probabilities, there's
like a fort chance it was a Marvel movie. Uh
sure here in Atlanta. You're right, yeah, because it's a movie, right,
exactly right, all right, so they got you in there.

(06:43):
They know they can mark it up. But there are
online casket retailers now who are who have had enough.
They say we want more than an eighteen percent market
share because we're going direct to customer. We are selling
them cheaper. In some cases you can save you know,

(07:03):
seven fred bucks on the casket alone, and some of
them deliver overnight. The other ones have them to you
in like a few days. And they're like, this is
an outdated model that we're using where these you know,
we need to move on from this two manufacturers and
uh and move into the modern age where you can
buy this thing on Amazon or at Costco. Right, which

(07:24):
is smart and it makes sense. And if you give
any kind of thought to this, or if you'll listen
to your uncle Sal, and your uncle Sal has happens
to be tech savvy and knows to go on to
Amazon to order a casket. You can order one of
these caskets and save hundreds, potentially thousands of dollars UM
and get pretty much the same casket that you would
get from the funeral director. And time was up until

(07:48):
not that long ago, that the funeral director would say, sorry,
we don't deal in third party caskets. We only uh,
we were only able to supply our own caskets, so
it's are the only ones we use. And that was
what they did. They blocked caskets that were purchased outside
um and you had no choice but to buy your
casket through the funeral home you were using until get this,

(08:12):
until the federal government stepped in and said, funeral industry,
you've gotten so bad and so predatory that we, the
Federal Trade Commission, are going to enact what's called the
Funeral Rule, and we're going to set up a bunch
of rules that govern how you conduct your business because
you have shown that you can't be trusted to conduct

(08:32):
your business fairly otherwise. And one of them is that
you have to accept third party caskets. Yeah, and you
know that's why it's called the casket racket. That's why
this episode is titled that, because it was a racket
up until then. The only reason I'm gonna say it's
not a racket anymore. Is because of that funeral rule

(08:52):
where they do have to accept a third party casket.
But there's still as of two thousand nineteen of casket
are still purchased through those main manufacturers. Like that's still
going on. I think much of that is because people
just don't know that there is that funeral rule and
that there are other options. Yeah, and the next time
that somebody complains to you about big government, you tell

(09:14):
them about the funeral rule and tell them to go
think about that. Uh, you can get free shipping with
some of these, like I said, you can many times
get them overnighted or there in a few days, and
you can save a lot of money. And like this
sounds like we're on a soapbox, but it's just it's
a bad time when you're bearing a loved one and
it's already expensive. So if we can impart a little

(09:37):
wisdom and you can save you know, a couple of
grand Like, I think we're doing a service here. I
agree wholeheartedly. Um and I think Chuck, we should do
an entire episode on the funeral rule. It's pretty it's
much more expansive than just making funeral directors, except third
party caskets. There's a lot more to it. Yeah, I'm

(09:57):
surprised we didn't cover that in any of our anti
funeral Yeah. And also we've done an entire episode on caskets,
if I'm not mistaken. Remember, Ghana has this awesome tradition
of making these super style and cool caskets. So if
you have some time to kill right now, go online
and do an image search of Ghana caskets and you

(10:19):
will be impressed. That's right. And we also did one
on cremation and the latest numbers. I think we did
this back then, but just to keep everyone updated. Numbers
by the n f d A, the National Funeral Director's
Association say that the cremation rate now in America is
projected to be fifty eight percent and there projecting that

(10:42):
out in to drop down to twenty five of burial,
so se cremation. Yeah, I don't know that that's going
to have an effect on caskets because people who are
cremated still often have like viewings and showings and check
them outs and all that stuff. You still gonna need
to keep poke it for it. So I don't know

(11:02):
that that will affect things. But you know, there you go.
That's a great way to is Yeah, since everything just
petered out yet again, that means the short stuff everybody
is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of
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(11:23):
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