Call Charles Pattman, the director of Wilson-Wooddale Funeral Home, and—if you ask—he’ll tell you that one of his full-service funerals typically costs $4,000.
Ask how he got to that price and Pattman will invite you to his establishment on Wooddale Boulevard and personally guide you through the costs.
You won’t find prices listed on the funeral home’s website, as Business Report details in a feature from the current issue. If you’re looking to plan a ceremony, the site directs you to either call the funeral home, visit in person or fill out an online form with the promise that a staff member will call to set up a meeting.
The vast majority of funeral homes—both nationally and in Baton Rouge—operate this way.
While the Federal Trade Commission ‘Funeral Rule’ requires funeral homes to disclose prices over the phone and provide detailed, written price lists to visiting customers, it does not require them to share their prices online. So most don’t.
“Putting price lists online is kind of like saying, ‘Mom passed away, and we’re shopping for a television. Who’s got the cheapest television?’” Pattman says.
Others, however, like the Funeral Consumers Alliance and the Consumer Federation of America, argue that the lack of an online provision in the 1984 FTC rule needs to be changed, because it prevents customers from price shopping in a more efficient, objective and transparent way.
The FTC is required to review the Funeral Rule later in 2018. Until then, local funeral directors grapple with the intricacies of what an online price disclosure requirement would mean for them.
Some funeral directors argue online comparison shopping doesn’t give an accurate snapshot of the services provided, anyway.
Overhead costs like staffing, maintenance and other behind-the-scenes operations might cause a variance in expenditures, Winnfield funeral director Cedric Lawson says. Given the wide pricing spectrum, the emphasis of the funeral director is educating the customer on what the funeral home can do for the customer, but it could and is changing.
“The funeral industry is slowly getting into the advancement of technology,” he says. “In a few years, the majority will put their prices online.”
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