Finding the final arrangements you want and can afford

[Editor’s note: FEN guidelines call for anyone applying for Exit Guide services to have a body disposition plan or funeral arrangements made. This post is one effort to assist all FEN members in this process.]

When contemplating what you want when it comes to the disposition of your body, it helps to go in with the understanding that very few services are required by law. Whether you choose a simple cremation with no ceremony, body burial preceded by a conventional funeral, or donating your body to anatomical study, the legal requirements that must be fulfilled at death are so minimal most people are surprised. And this holds true in every state in the country. If you’re willing to clear your mind of what you think you have to do for a funeral, your planning will go more smoothly and more quickly.

Consumer research shows that most Americans know little that’s factual about funeral purchases. What’s more, those surveyed who have arranged a funeral for someone else in the past were no more knowledgeable about their options and their legal rights regarding final arrangements than people who have never set foot in a mortuary.

So what is required by law at death?

1. A properly completed and filed death certificate—the attending doctor, or in his or her absence, the medical examiner or coroner, must sign the certificate attesting to the medical cause of death. Once this is done, the state’s interest in that death has been closed and satisfied.

2. A permit for transporting the body and/or cremating or burying it—Usually referred to as a “burial-transit permit,” this is the form that says, “The death certificate has been filed, and the body may now be sent to the crematory or cemetery.” Most states require this permit, though a few do not for in-state transportation or burial. A growing number of states also require a cremation-specific permit be obtained before the cremation, too.



3. The body must be buried, cremated, or donated to an anatomical gift program within a reasonable period of time—This time period varies by state, and unless there is an exceptional circumstance, these rules pose no problem for families who want to organize a viewing, funeral, or gathering with the body present.

As Porky Pig used to say signing off at the end of a Warner Brothers cartoon, “That’s all, folks!” That is, literally, all that is required by law when a person dies. Everything else—embalming, having a funeral with the body present, even buying a casket—is optional and at your family’s discretion. There are some circumstances in which families may have to agree to have the body refrigerated–if they decline embalming, for example. Texas requires that, if a body is held for 24 hours or longer, it must either be refrigerated, embalmed, or placed in a sealed container.

A good rule of thumb: Any time a funeral business person claims you are required to buy a service or product, insist that they produce this law, in writing, with a citation. In most cases there is no such law. Or, some funeral directors may not mention the option of refrigeration if they have an interest in selling you embalming. Don’t trust; verify.

If affordability or simplicity is your goal, three basic options are almost always available.

Direct Cremation—This is a standard term used by funeral homes everywhere in the US.

Direct cremation includes picking up the body, completing and filing the necessary paperwork, and returning the cremated remains to the family. No embalming, viewing, or casket is necessary (a simple cardboard box called an “alternative container” is used to hold the body).

A reasonable price for a direct cremation is somewhere between $700 and $1,200. Paying more than that only drains your wallet. Check funerals.org to find your closest Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA) affiliate; most have done cost-comparison surveys that can narrow down your choices. You can price-shop on your own, too. A regulation called the “Funeral Rule,” enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, requires funeral directors to give price quotes by phone on any funeral or cremation service. Pick five within a 20-mile radius, and you’re likely to find one within or close to that reasonable price range.

Tip!—Be sure to ask the funeral home if the price for direct cremation includes the crematory fee. Funeral homes that don’t own crematories use third-party services. These crematories charge the funeral home an average of $300 to cremate the body. While this should be included in the advertised price of direct cremation, FCA studies indicate about 20 percent of funeral homes fail to include it.



Immediate or Direct Burial—This is the burial analog to direct cremation. Again, there is no embalming or formal ceremony. A reasonable price range is similar to that for direct cremation, though FCA finds immediate burial often runs a little bit higher. The most basic price for immediate burial does not include a casket, so you must add the cost of whatever container or casket you choose. Yes, you are allowed to use the same simple cardboard container that is used for direct cremation; no law requires the use of a “casket” for burial at all. A container is a practical necessity, but it needn’t be expensive.

Remember that cemetery fees will usually add $1,000 to $5,000 (or even more in some areas) to your final bill, on top of the charge for the immediate burial service paid to the funeral home.



Anatomical Donation—There are two ways to donate your body for study, generally.

1. The traditional and most popular route is to donate your body to an accredited medical school, where it is used to teach anatomy to medical students. Almost all medical schools require you, the donor, to pre-enroll, so this is not the best last-minute decision. Each school has rules about which bodies, in what condition, they will accept for study. Generally, schools will reject a body that is morbidly obese, emaciated, with organs removed surgically, or with certain types of communicable diseases. Some will not accept a body when death resulted from suicide. Be sure that you understand these rules clearly when you sign up, and discuss a “plan B” with your family if the donation does not work out at the time of death.

You should also ask the medical school if it will pick up and transport the body, or whether the school requires the family to arrange (and pay for) a funeral director to do so. Do not assume that once you decide to donate your body everything will be free.

2. You have probably seen the news reports about for-profit “body brokers.” There are companies that accept donated bodies, usually at no cost to the family, and then pass them along, for a fee, to surgical conferences and other venues where doctors and surgeons study specific techniques. The bodies are frequently dissected and may be parceled out, with limbs going to one destination, and skin to another, for example.

Problems arise when there is a conflict between our perception of what they do with donated bodies and the reality. While US law prohibits the sale of body parts for profit, this law is functionally unenforceable. Who decides the difference between a reasonable fee for the staff to perform necessary work, and a profit? Who decides whether a $300 fee is for a femur, or for the technician’s service in preparing the femur? Money is money, and no one, not even those who process bodies and parts for study, works for free.

You must decide for yourself what you find acceptable. Any body or tissue procurement company (whether for-profit or not-for-profit) should clearly state the purpose to which donated bodies are put and clearly disclose to the consumer whether for-profit entities or transactions are involved. We’ve known families who would not donate their bodies to any organization that made a profit or did not have an educational and non-profit mission. They see their gift of a donated body as an altruistic act that should not make anyone a private profit.

We have known other families who chose to donate to these companies and are not concerned about the potential for profit-making. For these families, the low cost and simplicity is the primary goal. (This is a good spot to remind readers that these choices don’t reflect on one’s moral character, and they don’t mean that if you’re frugal you don’t love or care about your dead. It’s ethically and morally fine not to have a sentimental attachment to the corpse, just as the reverse is ethically and morally fine.)

Planning ahead doesn’t mean paying ahead, though you can do so if that makes sense for you. Many people make plans for their own final arrangements and put sufficient funds in a savings account or a pay-on-death account for use by whoever will handle the arrangements. Existing life insurance is also a source of funding if the beneficiary will use some of the insurance benefits to pay for the final arrangements. For more information about paying for disposition plans, see the article on this subject at FCA’s website.

Whatever your choice, ask questions, get specific answers, and make sure that you’ve shared this information with the people closest to you who will actually be setting things in motion when you die. Knowledge in your own mind is useless and lost at death if you don’t have a detailed, candid conversation with those who will survive you.
For more information and details on the range of options available at death, visit Funeral Consumers Alliance and click on the “For Consumers” menu.

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Joshua Slocum is the Executive Director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a nonprofit group that is dedicated to protecting a consumer’s right to choose a meaningful, dignified, affordable funeral. It was started in 1963 with the help of the Cooperative League of the USA by a federation of local consumer groups that began forming in the late 1930s. Slocum is the co-author with Lisa Carlson of Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death. The book is available at the FCA website and from Amazon.