10 Nov 2019
Funerals can take 52 hours to arrange
To support the submissions it is making on behalf of members to the Competition & Markets Authority, the NAFD has undertaken a comparison of the number of employee hours it takes to arrange a straightforward traditional funeral today, compared to a decade ago.
The results are based on contributions from small independent or family firms, mid-sized firms and larger providers and is inclusive of collecting, preparing, caring for and storing the deceased person, all liaison with the family – including facilitating visits to see their loved one – booking all arrangements and completing paperwork, carrying out a typical funeral service, following up payment and arranging any memorial items.
The initial results suggest that it takes, on average, twenty hours more today to arrange a funeral than in 2009 (52 hours, 42 mins, compared to 32 hours, 53 mins).
The personalisation and increasing complexity is the main contributor to the change. For example, there is a more than two-fold increase in the length of time the average arrangement meeting lasts (two hours, compared to just under 40 minutes). Previously, there were fewer variables in funeral arrangements, so the meeting generally completed in a shorter period of time. Today, not only are meetings often more complex but members reported more instances of abandonment, where meetings do not end in a contract to arrange the funeral as people are now encouraged to shop around. However, also contributing to the change is an increasing in delays associated with statutory requirements, such as death registration and dealing with coroners/procurators fiscal.
The NAFD is now undertaking a larger exercise to see how these figures compare to other firm’s experiences. For some businesses, the average hours may be fewer but, for others, greater. For example, one medium-sized firm has calculated the average ‘employee weeks’ per funeral in their business today, compared to when they joined the business, because of the changing nature of the funerals they are arranging. They reported that: “we currently need 1.85 employee weeks to deliver a funeral (74 hours). This is an increase of 85% in 40 years.”
Further reading
Our guide to arranging a funeral