how much does a funeral cost
The cost of a funeral depends on what sort of funeral you want. To give you some idea of prices we’ve included some examples at the end of this section.
Of course we’re very happy to meet with you and give you a no-obligation estimate once we know what you’re looking for. If after that meeting you don’t want us to continue as your funeral director, that’s no problem at all.
A funeral invoice is essentially made up of three sections:
- the casket
- our fee for professional services, and
- other charges which might include; flowers, catering, cemetery or cremation fees, paying the celebrant or minister, service sheets, slideshows, and other AV requirements, newspaper notices, paying doctors and the like.
We think it is important to point out that as funeral directors we often make payments on your behalf to a number of third parties involved in the funeral process so our invoice is not exclusively the cost of using our services. Rather, we offer you the convenience of only having to worry about one invoice at the end of the process rather than having multiple accounts to settle.
funeral costs NZ
Our professional services fee is based on the specific services you use. This could include; meeting with you to make arrangements, overseeing and completing the many tasks required to be done in the lead up to the funeral service, liaising with third parties such as the celebrant or organist, attending the funeral service, and looking after any legal requirements such as registering the death. It also covers the cost of having our team on call 24/7 and running our exceptional facilities.
Most of the families we serve use the full range of our services from the moment the death occurs till the burial or cremation, some only need certain parts of our service, and in all cases the fee charged reflects what you have used. Other charges include transferring the deceased from the place of death to the funeral home, embalming and caring for the body, and providing a hearse for the funeral service.
Terms of Payment
Our invoice is usually sent to you the week following the funeral and is due for payment within 28 days of the funeral.
We happily accept payment in a variety of ways; cash, Internet Banking, Eftpos, Visa or MasterCard.
At the time of making the funeral arrangement you’ll be required to sign our Financial Agreement and Authority contract and in doing so you accept financial responsibility for the payment of our invoice by the due date. If you need more time to pay for the funeral extended credit can be arranged, but this comes with additional cost.
With every funeral we provide an estimate of expenses outlining what we expect the funeral to cost based on the decisions you’ve made.
It’s important to us that every family we serve has a positive experience and that there is clarity and transparency around what we’re doing and how much it will cost you.