One way to find a funeral home

At our hospital, chaplains are the people with the responsibility and opportunity to ask families what funeral home they will be using for their loved one. It’s a difficult time, shortly after the death. And yet, it’s a helpful question because it gives the family something to do, a clear sense of the most immediate next step.

As a chaplain, I can’t recommend individual funeral homes. What we can do is point people to Parting.com, a website that helps people find funeral homes in their area and compare services and prices.

It’s a simple process.

1. You enter your ZIP code.

2. You answer 4 questions:

   1. Immediate need or planning for the future.

   2. Burial or cremation.

   3. Service at the funeral home or no service.

   4. Viewing/wake at the funeral home or no viewing/wake

3. You see a list of funeral homes with estimated prices.

There are a few notes for users.

1. Some funeral homes have paid for a premium listing. This puts them in the top section of the list and allows them to describe themselves. Premium, in this case, doesn’t mean the funeral home is better, merely that their listing is better.

2. Not all of the 28,000 funeral homes in the country are listed. At the time of one article about the site in 2017, 15,000 were listed. Since then, more are likely to have been added.

3. You have to call for the actual costs. These are not guaranteed prices. However, they give you a start in your conversations.