Things you should know before you go:

The funeral arrangement meeting
By Andrew Hodges
March 2006

Last month we looked at the basics with what takes place following a death at a hospital, care facility, residence or other location. The next step is the funeral arrangement meeting between the next of kin and the funeral director.

First of all, an appointment time should be set up prior to a family arriving at the funeral home; to ensure the funeral director is available. If for any reason the family is unable to meet at the designated time, all they need to do is call the funeral home to reschedule.

Arrangement meetings can cover a lot of information regardless of the type of service selected. In my experience, in order to thoroughly explain options to a family so that they can make informed decisions, the meeting takes about two hours. However, there can be extremes; the longest arrangement I have ever had was six hours and the shortest was 30 minutes. During the longer arrangement, the family had many questions and had to revisit certain decisions so that they were comfortable with their choices. With the shorter meeting, the family knew exactly what they wanted and had a good understanding of what was involved prior to meeting with me. My point is that arrangement meetings take as long as they need to; partly because most people do not discuss funerals until they are faced with arranging one. But on the other hand, even with situations where there were prior discussions and perhaps pre-arrangements in place, there will still be a need to review things in order to make final decisions.

In order to present this information clearly I will use point form and discuss the details and in later articles. By doing this, I hope you will become more aware of what to expect when the time comes to arrange a funeral.

The order in which information is discussed can depend on such things as the funeral director's arrangement style and the family, who may have certain opening questions that can direct the conversation.

Here are the basics:

• Deciding what type of funeral service to have
• Establishing who will be signing documents and be responsible for final decisions; named as the "purchaser" -- the person who has accepted financial responsibility under a funeral service contract.
• Reviewing what is involved with the chosen type of service, including the family reviewing the funeral home price list to understand what is required, what options are available and the breakdown of costs. At this point I show families an example contract to explain how the total cost is calculated, which includes the funeral home service fee, supplies such as the casket or a cremation container, vault or urn, how the GST is applied and any outside costs that can be placed on the contract to keep everything on one bill, such as clergy honorarium, newspaper notices, flowers, reception, cemetery and/or crematorium fee and monument inscription, to name a few.
• Selecting items such as the casket, cremation container, casket vault or urn by going into a casket selection room to make a decision.
• Recording information about the deceased that is then shared with third parties, such as clergy and cemetery, in order to perform the service but also to register the death with the province of Ontario. The following is the information is what the family should bring in with them about the deceased for the meeting:
  
  • Full name
  • Social Insurance number
  • Date and place of birth
  • Occupation
  • Full mailing address
  • Father's name and place of birth
  • Mother's name (including maiden name) and place of birth

Note: this is just some of the information that is recorded on the "Statement of Death," which is the document used to register the death with the province to obtain a burial permit that is used for either burial or cremation. If there is information that is not known, such as the mother's place of birth for example, "unknown" would be placed in the respective question box.

• Completing a newspaper death notice or radio announcement, depending on the family's preferences
• Completing relevant documentation, which depends on the type of service requested
• Required documentation for all funeral services:
  • Statement of Death
  • Funeral Services contract, signed by both the licensed funeral director and the next of kin named as the "purchaser." The family is then given a copy
  • Privacy Policy: this a relatively new form to assure families that although information will be shared with third parties to perform the funeral, this information is not shared outside of this realm.

Other documentation that may be relevant:

• For cremation: Application for cremation
• Record of cremated remains
• Rental casket agreement (if selected)

Some funeral homes may have their own in-house documents so that information is shared correctly between staff members. These are usually larger operations with staff members who work on shift.

If a funeral service is requested, the clergy would be contacted either during the meeting between the funeral director and family or afterwards, and a time would be set up of the family to be in touch with the clergy to discuss the details of the service.

Clothing and a recent picture are also things a family can bring in with them for the arrangement meeting. A brief point about clothing; items with long sleeves and high neck lines are preferable (I'll explain in a later article) and it is okay -and personally I encourage - families to include undergarments.