Original research

683 price lists · 10,585 figures checked

What funeral homes’ own price lists really say

We read every funeral home price list we could find, twice, and checked each figure against the page. In 15.7% of them the direct cremation price leaves out the cremation itself, a separate charge that runs a median $350. Only 873 of 19,805 trading funeral homes publish a list a family can find and check.

12,334 measured prices · 44 states

Cost of living indexes do not predict what a funeral costs

Almost every "cost in your city" page multiplies a national median by a regional price index. We tested that against 12,334 funeral prices and the correlation is -0.106, holding at zero in every subset. We were using the method ourselves, so we stopped, and this is what we found.

11,260 funeral homes · 34 states tested

The only funeral home in town charges 19.7% more

A funeral home with no other home within 10 miles charges a median $2,275 for a direct cremation, against $1,900 where eleven or more sit nearby. The gap holds inside 26 of 34 states tested on their own homes, and a 17 mile drive is worth a median $400.

1,145 cities · 12,327 funeral homes

The same cremation costs twice as much across town

In the typical American city the dearest funeral home charges 1.94 times what the cheapest does for an identical direct cremation, a gap of $1,235. Ringing three of them instead of one is worth a median $494, and federal law already obliges every one to quote you over the telephone.

What people actually complain about in life insurance

Every individual life complaint filed with a state regulator, grouped by what it was about. The largest category is not denied claims, it is how the policy was sold.

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The Funeral Price Index

What funerals actually cost over time, from official BLS data, against everything else in the economy. Funeral prices outran inflation over twenty years and have run behind it for the last ten, and the second of those is not the good news it sounds like.

September 2026 · 50 states and DC

The Funeral Affordability Gap

A typical burial costs $15,395, or 19.8% of a year’s median household income. In 26 states it is a fifth or more, and the states where a funeral costs the most are not the states where it hurts most.