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The Loewen Group and the other big consolidators know full well that family members make funeral arrangements in a daze, often picking a particular home because it happens to be close by or has a familiar name or once buried some other member of the family. Out of grief or a desire not to seem cheap at such a weighty juncture, survivors jettison the consumer instincts they would most certainly employ when shopping for a new car. As a result, funeral homes traditionally haven't had to worry much about price competition. In its annual 10K report to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Loewen Group describes this lack of price sensitivity as one of the "attractive industry fundamentals" of the funeral business.
According to a survey by the Memorial Society of North Texas, which seeks to help members arrange economical funerals, homes owned by Loewen, SCI and Louisiana-based Stewart Enterprises (the third largest funeral company) were consistently more expensive than their independent competitors. In Amarillo, Texas, for example, a Loewen home charged $1,638 for the basic services of its funeral director and staff--the "nondeclinable" fee allowed by the Federal Trade Commission, known more casually in the industry as the "cover charge." The other three Amarillo funeral homes in the survey charged an average of $863. A TIME price survey found Amarillo's Boxwell Brothers funeral home, an independent, charged $185 for embalming, but Loewen's N.S. Griggs charged $425. "When the uninformed consumer walks through the door and it happens to be their misfortune to select a Loewen Group home, they're going to pay at least 15% more," says Don Flynn, a Canadian mortician and industry gadfly.
In fact, prices can rise so fast that the independent funeral-home operators targeted by Mitford's first book suddenly find themselves to be death-care heroes. Rising prices have begun to erode the industry's historic immunity from bargain hunting. Consider Cape Cod, Massachusetts, where Loewen controls all but three funeral homes from Hyannis to Provincetown. (It offered to buy two of those three as well, but their owners declined.) The Massachusetts attorney general became concerned enough about Loewen's near monopoly to require the company to divest itself of three homes, a move of questionable value given that Loewen had already shut one down and the other two were small operations. Owners of all three surviving independents say they don't mind Loewen's presence because Loewen boosts its prices so high that any customers with the emotional stomach to shop around will come to them. Faith Hallett, co-owner with her sister Fran of the Hallett Funeral Home in South Yarmouth, Massachusetts, estimates that her funeral prices run $600 to $1,200 lower than those of the surrounding Loewen homes and adds, "The Loewen Group hasn't hurt us in the least." Says a former Loewen executive, interviewed on condition of anonymity: "The best thing that can happen to a local funeral home is that Loewen buys the competition, because the prices will go through the roof."