FTC Funeral Rule: Your Rights on Caskets, Cremation and Embalming

If you're arranging a parent's funeral, the FTC Funeral Rule says a funeral home can't charge you a fee for using a casket you bought somewhere else.1 The rule also says you don't need a casket for a direct cremation, and it limits when a funeral home can charge for embalming.1,2 Knowing your FTC Funeral Rule rights before you sit down with the funeral director can save money and spare you a hard conversation at the worst possible time.

In This Guide

• Key Takeaways
• Your Rights Under the FTC Funeral Rule
• The Price Lists You Can Ask For
• Can a Funeral Home Charge a Fee If You Buy a Casket Elsewhere?
• Do You Need a Casket for Cremation?
• Do You Need a Burial Vault or Grave Liner?
• Is Embalming Required by Law?
• Check the Itemized Statement Before You Pay
• What to Ask for at the Arrangement Meeting
• If a Funeral Home Breaks the FTC Funeral Rule
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Learn More

Your Rights Under the FTC Funeral Rule

You may be making these decisions within a day or two of the death, tired and grieving, and that's a hard moment to question a package price or a claim that something is required. The Funeral Rule, a federal regulation at 16 CFR Part 453 enforced by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), exists so you can buy only what you want.3,4

The General Price List is the center of it: it lets you buy, item by item, only the funeral goods and services you want. Any arrangement you pick will still include the funeral home's charge for its basic services.3 Beyond that fee, a funeral home can make providing one item depend on your buying another only when a law requires it or the rule otherwise permits it, and anything you're required to buy has to be explained in writing on your itemized statement. As the casket section below explains, it can also turn down a combination of goods or services that would be impossible, impractical or excessively burdensome to provide.1 In practice, that means you can choose the items you want rather than taking a whole package.

The rest of this guide takes the protections one at a time, with what each one does and doesn't cover.

The Price Lists You Can Ask For

You're allowed to shop around, even on the phone. A funeral provider must give a printed or typewritten General Price List to keep to anyone who asks in person about its funeral goods, services or prices, including when that conversation happens away from the funeral home. A funeral provider must also give accurate price information to people who ask by telephone.3

Ask for the casket price list before anyone shows you a casket. When you ask in person about caskets, a funeral provider must offer that list when you start discussing them, and in any event before showing you any (16 CFR 453.2(b)). Each list must include at least the retail prices of the items it offers that don't need special ordering.5 Do the same for vaults and grave liners: unless the funeral provider puts its outer burial container prices on the General Price List, it must give you a printed container price list, offered when you start discussing containers and in any event before showing them.2

The FTC's advice to families is to get the casket price information before you see the caskets, so you can ask about lower-priced products that may not be on display.5

If one funeral home will send your parent's body to another, for example because your parent died far from where the funeral will be, the General Price List covers that too. If a funeral provider offers forwarding of remains to another funeral home or receiving remains from another funeral home, its General Price List must give a price for each, together with a list of the services that price includes. The FTC groups these two with direct cremation and immediate burial as minimal services whose prices must include any fee the funeral home charges for its basic services.5

Can a Funeral Home Charge a Fee If You Buy a Casket Elsewhere?

No, according to the FTC. You can buy a casket from another seller, online or anywhere else, and have the funeral home use it, and the FTC says the funeral home can't charge you extra for doing so.

This protection can matter in the room itself. If you've found a casket you can afford somewhere else and you're told during the arrangement meeting that using it will cost extra, that's the kind of charge the FTC says the rule doesn't allow. The regulation behind it, 16 CFR 453.4(b), says a funeral provider can't make buying one item a condition of buying another, except as required by law or otherwise permitted by the rule, and the only fees it can make a condition of serving you are for its basic services, the items you select and anything you're required to buy, as explained in writing on the itemized statement.1

The FTC spells out what that means for caskets. In its compliance guidance to funeral homes, the FTC says a funeral provider cannot refuse to serve a family because they don't buy one particular item, such as a casket or embalming, from it, and cannot charge an additional fee or surcharge to a family that bought a casket elsewhere. The FTC describes an extra "casket handling" fee as "simply a hidden penalty for those consumers who exercise the right to purchase a casket from another seller."1

If a handling fee for an outside casket shows up on the price list or the itemized statement, say that you understand the FTC doesn't allow it, and ask for it to come off before you sign. If the funeral home won't remove it, the steps in If a Funeral Home Breaks the FTC Funeral Rule apply.

There is one real limit. A funeral provider doesn't violate the rule by declining a combination of goods or services that would be impossible, impractical or excessively burdensome to provide. But the FTC says a provider can't refuse a request simply because it doesn't like it or approve of it.1

Do You Need a Casket for Cremation?

Not for a direct cremation. The FTC defines a direct cremation as one without any formal viewing of the remains, and without any visitation or ceremony with the body present. A funeral provider or a crematory that requires you to buy a casket for a direct cremation is committing an unfair or deceptive practice under 16 CFR 453.4(a), and a funeral provider also may not claim that state or local law, or anything else, requires a casket for a direct cremation.1

Instead, you can use an alternative container. Any funeral provider that arranges direct cremations must make an alternative container available, and its General Price List must say, next to its direct cremation prices, that an alternative container can be used. The FTC describes an alternative container as an unfinished wood box or other non-metal receptacle, without ornamentation or a fixed interior lining, made of materials such as fiberboard, pressed wood or composition materials.1

One practical wrinkle: crematories may set standards for the kind of alternative containers they'll accept, for example only rigid containers.1 If you're buying a container yourself, ask the funeral home what the crematory it uses will take.

Do You Need a Burial Vault or Grave Liner?

In most areas, state or local law doesn't require one, but the cemetery may. An outer burial container is any container designed to go around the casket in the grave, such as a burial vault, grave box or grave liner. Under 16 CFR 453.3(c), a funeral provider may not tell you that state or local law, or a particular cemetery, requires an outer burial container when that isn't the case, and it must tell you that state law doesn't require you to buy one.2

That disclosure appears on the outer burial container price list, or next to the container prices if they're on the General Price List, in these words: "In most areas of the country, state or local law does not require that you buy a container to surround the casket in the grave. However, many cemeteries require that you have such a container so that the grave will not sink in. Either a grave liner or a burial vault will satisfy these requirements." The FTC says this disclosure also tells consumers that grave liners are suitable for meeting any cemetery requirement.2

So the real question is what your parent's cemetery requires. The FTC says that if a particular cemetery does require a container, the funeral provider should explain this to the family.2 If you're told a vault is required, ask whether the rule comes from the cemetery or from a law, and whether a grave liner would meet it.

It also helps to know who the Funeral Rule covers. It binds funeral providers, meaning businesses that sell or offer to sell both funeral goods and funeral services to the public, and the FTC says it doesn't apply to third-party sellers such as casket and monument dealers, or to cemeteries that lack an on-site funeral home.6 So if a requirement or a fee comes from a cemetery with no funeral home on site, the Funeral Rule's price-list and disclosure protections may not apply to it, and it's worth asking the cemetery to show you its rules in writing.

Is Embalming Required by Law?

Except in certain special cases, no, but the honest answer depends on your state and on the kind of service you want. The FTC says federal law doesn't require embalming under any circumstances. State or local law, though, can require embalming in certain special cases.2 If you're told embalming is required, ask which law requires it.

Here's what the Funeral Rule does guarantee. Under 16 CFR 453.3(a), a funeral provider may not tell you state or local law requires embalming when that isn't true, and its General Price List must disclose that, except in certain special cases, embalming is not required by law. Unless state or local law requires it, a funeral provider may not tell you embalming is required for:2

• a direct cremation
• an immediate burial
• a closed-casket funeral without viewing or visitation, when refrigeration is available

A viewing is different. The FTC says a funeral home that doesn't have refrigeration may tell a family that it requires embalming as a practical necessity for a funeral with a formal viewing.2 If you'd like a viewing without embalming, it's fair to ask whether the funeral home has refrigeration.

Do you have to pay for embalming you didn't approve?

A funeral provider may charge for embalming only if one of these applies (16 CFR 453.5(a)):2

1. State or local law requires embalming in the particular circumstances.
2. A family member or other authorized person gave prior approval for embalming.
3. The funeral provider couldn't reach a family member or other authorized person after exercising due diligence, had no reason to believe the family didn't want embalming, and later got approval for the embalming already done.

The FTC says that permission to embalm must be express and can't be implied. And if you chose arrangements such as a direct cremation or immediate burial, the itemized statement itself must tell you that you don't have to pay for embalming you didn't approve.2

So if you're asked to sign something during the arrangement meeting, read it for any mention of embalming. If you don't want embalming, tell the funeral director plainly and make sure the paperwork matches.

Check the Itemized Statement Before You Pay

At the end of the arrangement discussion, a funeral provider must give the person arranging the funeral an itemized written statement to keep (16 CFR 453.2(b)(5)). The itemized statement must list each funeral good and service you selected with its price, the specifically itemized cash advance items, and the total cost. When a cash advance price isn't yet known, the funeral provider must give a good faith estimate and then a written statement of the actual charges before the final bill is paid.5

The statement is also where a funeral home has to explain in writing any item you're told you must buy.1 A funeral provider may not tell you that federal, state or local law, or a particular cemetery or crematory, requires you to buy any funeral good or service when that isn't true. If it says a legal, cemetery or crematory requirement makes you buy something, it must identify and briefly describe that requirement in writing on the statement of the goods and services you selected.2 If something shows up on the statement that you didn't choose, ask what it is and which law or requirement makes it necessary before you sign or pay.

What to Ask for at the Arrangement Meeting

You can bring this list with you, or hand it to the family member who's going in your place.

• Ask for the General Price List at the start, and keep it.3
• Ask for the casket price list before you look at caskets, and the outer burial container price list before you look at containers.5
• If you bought a casket elsewhere, say so, and ask the funeral home to confirm there's no extra fee for using it.1
• If you're choosing a direct cremation, ask for the alternative container and what the crematory accepts.1
• If you're told a vault or any other item is required, ask which law or cemetery rule requires it, and look for that requirement in writing on the statement.2
• If you don't want embalming, say so clearly, and ask whether refrigeration is available.2
• Before you pay, ask for the itemized written statement and check each line.5

If your parent prepaid a funeral or set up a funeral trust, bring that paperwork to the meeting. The FTC says the Funeral Rule's requirements apply to both pre-need and at-need funeral arrangements.6 Our guide to irrevocable funeral trusts and Medicaid explains how that kind of trust works.

If you're working out how to pay, two federal rules are worth knowing. Social Security's one-time lump-sum death payment is $255, and it goes only to a surviving spouse who was living with your parent or is entitled to benefits on your parent's record, or to children entitled to benefits on that record, so an adult child who isn't entitled to child's benefits can't receive it.7 And funeral costs can't be deducted on your parent's final income tax return or counted as a medical expense on your own; for federal tax purposes they count only for an estate figuring federal estate tax.8

If your parent was a veteran, ask the funeral home about VA burial benefits too, and see our guide to VA burial and memorial benefits for what the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs offers, our state-by-state guide to veteran burial allowances, and our guide to choosing between a state or national veterans cemetery.

If a Funeral Home Breaks the FTC Funeral Rule

Start with the funeral director. The FTC says that if you have a problem concerning funeral matters, it's best to try to resolve it first with the funeral director.4

If that doesn't work, go to the state. The FTC says most states have a licensing board that regulates the funeral industry, and you may contact the board in your state for information or help. The Funeral Consumers Alliance likewise says a complaint should be addressed to the state's regulatory or licensure board when there is one.4 To find your state's board, the Funeral Consumers Alliance's complaint page offers a state-by-state list of contacts.4

You can also report the funeral home to the FTC. The FTC says you can file a complaint online at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP (382-4357), TDD 1-866-653-4261, and the Funeral Consumers Alliance says the FTC accepts reports of deceptive or misleading funeral practices.4 The FTC enforces the Funeral Rule, but it's candid about its role: the FTC says it can't resolve individual problems for consumers, though it can act against a company if it sees a pattern of possible law violations.4

The FTC also says you can contact your state attorney general's office or local consumer protection agencies.4

Arranging the funeral is one task among many after a parent dies. Our checklist for what to do when a parent dies walks through the rest, and our guide to caregiver grief is there for the part no checklist covers.

Learn More

Find personalized help reading a funeral home's price list and arranging a parent's funeral at brevy.com.

The information on Brevy.com is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules vary by state and program and change frequently. Always verify with the relevant agency or a qualified professional. Brevy is not a law firm, financial advisor, or healthcare provider.