News Release Creighton University
OMAHA, Neb.-Last year was the deadliest in U.S. history. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), deaths topped 3 million for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic. Many Americans had to bury a loved one, while already facing financial strain due to COVID-19. With average funeral and burial costs exceeding $9,000, the issue of funeral poverty has been exacerbated, according to Professor Victoria Haneman at Creighton University School of Law. She is advocating for changes in the death services industry to help reduce funeral poverty and make families more empowered to plan for and manage end-of-life decisions.
Funerals are the third-largest expense for families, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and research from the Federal Reserve indicates 40% of Americans would have great difficulty covering an unexpected $400 expense. When loved ones die, grief-stricken families have to make quick, and often costly, decisions. Fortunately, the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and members of U.S. Congress recently announced low-income families will soon be able to apply for funeral reimbursement of up to $7,000, as part of a COVID-19 relief bill passed in December.
“Consumers are forced to deal with an extraordinarily expensive expenditure at a time when they are likely to be cognitively impaired,” said Haneman, Creighton’s Frank J. Kellegher Professor of Trusts & Estates. “During this time of bereavement, the relatively uninformed consumer generally leans upon the advice of industry professionals with a profit-seeking objective.”
Haneman, whose research will soon be published in the University of Richmond Law Review, believes unconsidered expenses perpetuate inequality and contribute to intergenerational cycles of poverty. Through her ongoing research on the death care services project, which includes funeral poverty, green burial and the intersection of both with the Internal Revenue Code, she hopes to demonstrate to her students the ways in which traditional structures can be considered through a creative lens, and the role that lawyers can play in being agents of change. She said changes are needed to heighten consumer death literacy, bring awareness to spending during times of grief and ease access to information and alternative choices.
“It is imperative that options be made available to transition human remains in a way that does not exacerbate cycles of poverty and allows for the living to preserve dignity. This need calls for important changes to existing legal structures, including modernization of consumer protection regulation, change to laws regulating the death service industry and recharacterization of expenses for tax purposes,” Haneman said.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is conducting a review of the Funeral Rule that protects consumers. The Funeral Rule was enacted in 1984 when computers were not readily available. Haneman said the issue of price disclosure needs to be revisited to require providers to list prices online and disclose if they are not a locally owned business.
“Information must be made readily available for the grieving consumer, who is less likely to engage in price-conscious behavior and bound by time-constrained decision-making. Informal studies have found that death service companies that list pricing online are as much as 30% cheaper than those that do not disclose costs online,” Haneman said.
As specifically concerns funeral and burial expenses, Haneman said consumers may not be aware some costly options are actually unnecessary and cheaper alternatives are available, such as cremation and green burial, services which are being used more frequently.
“Interest in green burials is being driven by cost and concern for the environment. Green burials can be as simple as using biodegradable options or shrouds in lieu of caskets or may go so far as composting the decedent. Tax incentives for alternative options and pre-planning death care services would help educate the public so families can make better-informed decisions,” Haneman said.
While the funeral of the future could provide more affordable options for the consumer, however there are barriers to development.
“New death-service technology exists, however, state law and regulation impose unnecessary costs and preserve status quo. The practice-ready lawyer of the future anticipates change. Our students learn from casebooks, but forward-facing legal education also teaches students to be responsive to innovation and disruptive technologies,” Haneman said.
About Creighton University: Creighton University, based in Omaha, Nebraska, is one of 27 Jesuit colleges and universities in the U.S. It enrolls 4,458 undergraduates and 4,312 graduate and professional students among nine schools and colleges. No other university its size offers students such a comprehensive academic environment with personal attention from faculty-mentors. Creighton ranks in the top third of U.S. News & World Report’s rankings for National Universities.