Funeral Home General Price List: Know Your Rights

A funeral home general price list, or GPL, is an itemized list of every service and product the funeral home sells, with the price of each one beside it. Under the FTC Funeral Rule, the funeral home has to hand you a copy to keep as soon as you begin talking about arrangements in person, before anyone shows you a casket or asks what kind of service you want. You don't have to ask for it, you don't have to pay for it, and you don't have to give your name to get one.

What is a funeral home general price list?

The GPL is the master price document, listing things like transfer of remains, embalming, refrigeration, use of the facility for a visitation, use of a hearse, graveside service, direct cremation, and immediate burial. It also gives you the right to buy individual items rather than a package. A funeral home cannot require you to take a bundle in order to get one piece of it, apart from the single non-declinable fee described below and anything your state genuinely requires.

Do funeral homes have to give prices over the phone?

Yes. The FTC Funeral Rule requires a funeral provider to give you accurate price information over the telephone if you ask for it, and you don't have to give your name, address, or phone number first. If someone tells you they can only discuss prices in person, that's a violation, not a policy.

What is the non-declinable basic services fee?

There is exactly one fee you cannot refuse: the basic services of the funeral director and staff. It covers the overhead of the arrangement itself, planning, filing permits, sheltering the remains, and coordinating with the cemetery or crematory, and it is built into the price of every service the home sells. In the National Funeral Directors Association's most recent General Price List Study, the median non-declinable basic services fee was roughly $2,459, and it varies widely between funeral homes in the same town.

What do the casket and outer burial container price lists show?

Before anyone walks you into the casket room, the funeral home must offer you a printed casket price list. The point is that you see the low-priced caskets in writing rather than only the ones staged at eye level in the showroom. Ask specifically whether every casket on the list is available, because the least expensive models are often not on display.

There's a matching rule for outer burial containers, the concrete or metal boxes some cemeteries require around the casket. If the funeral home sells them, you get a written outer burial container price list before you're shown any of them. No state law in Missouri, Illinois, or Kansas requires a vault, but individual cemeteries often do under their own rules, so ask the cemetery directly rather than taking anyone's word for it.

Can you buy a casket somewhere else?

You can, and the funeral home may not charge you extra for it. The Funeral Rule specifically bars a provider from refusing to handle a casket or urn you bought from a third party, and from adding a handling fee when you do, whether it came from an online seller, a discount casket store, or a woodworker. You also can't be required to be present when it's delivered, and you can't be asked to sign a waiver about its condition. If someone quotes you a handling charge, name the rule out loud.

What the embalming rules really say

No state requires routine embalming for every death, including Missouri, Illinois, and Kansas, and the GPL has to say so in writing. What state rules actually address is time and circumstance, such as refrigeration or embalming after a certain number of hours, transport across state lines, or particular causes of death. Refrigeration is a legal and much cheaper alternative in most situations, and embalming is not part of direct cremation or immediate burial at all. A funeral home also cannot charge you for embalming without your permission, and under the Funeral Rule it may only bill for it if state law requires it in your specific circumstances, if you gave express prior approval, or if it couldn't reach the family, had good reason to believe embalming was wanted, and confirmed that afterward.

How do you file a Funeral Rule complaint?

Federal complaints go to the FTC through its fraud reporting site or by phone, and the agency uses them both to build cases and to decide where to send undercover shoppers. Licensing complaints are separate and often more effective for a single bad experience: in Missouri, the State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors; in Illinois, the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation; in Kansas, the State Board of Mortuary Arts. Keep the GPL you were handed and the itemized statement of goods and services you signed, since both are dated evidence of what you were quoted.