CONSUMER INFORMATION: USEFUL PAMPHLETS

• Complying with the Funeral Rule – Written for funeral providers to help them meet the requirements of the Funeral Rule by the Federal Trade Commission. Read this, and you’ll bump your understanding of how to read a general price list considerably.
• Funerals, A Consumer Guide - Explains your rights as a funeral consumer and provides helpful advice.
• Paying Final Respects: Your Rights When Buying Funeral Goods And Services
  

Our national office provides a number of useful pamphlets in PDF format here, all Copyright © FCA. Following are direct links for a few of these.

• Cremation Explained – answers such questions as What is cremation? How much does cremation cost? Can a casket be rented? Is there a trend toward cremation? Is a casket required for cremation? Do I have to hire an undertaker?
• Death Away from Home – A guide to deaths that occur away from home, whether abroad or in other states, and how families can handle the complexities.
• Did You Forget? The Most Important Part of Funeral Planning – stakes out the importance of planning for one’s own funeral, how to organize one’s records and how to communicate one’s desires and preferences.
• How to Plan a Memorial Service – outlines the basic things to consider in designing any memorial service.
• How to read a General Price List (GPL) – This FCA pamphlet is a must-read for any funeral consumer and a real training aide for chapter volunteers.
• Veterans’ Funeral and Burial Benefits, Including Spouses and Dependent Children – covers the essentials for families that have veterans.
• What You Should Know About Embalming – delineates the embalming process and what consumers need to know to make informed decisions about whether to embalm the body. Is a funeral service necessary? What can be done with cremated remains?

And here is one more:

“What Families Know About Funeral-Related Costs: Implications for Social Work Practice” by Mercedes Bern-Klug, MSW, MA, Director, Funeral Information Project, Center on Aging, University of Kansas Medical Center – An enlightening treatise on why funerals cost so much that raise implications for informed consumers who want to do something about it.