Fees and Charges
Funeral services are different for each family and this impacts on the fee and cost structure of funeral services. Each family has the flexibility to arrange a funeral service to meet their own unique needs and expectations. The total funeral fees and costs reflect the level of complexity of these choices.
What is similar for each France Family Funeral client is that we provide them with an up-front itemised quotation and there are no hidden charges.
The funeral items fall into three main categories; Fixed Disbursement Costs, Optional Disbursement Costs and Professional Fees.
- Fixed disbursement Costs:
These are amounts charged by third parties to compensate for their role in the funeral process. They may include cemetery or crematorium charges. Generally these expenses need to be prepaid by us and are added to the funeral account. - Optional Disbursement Costs:
These are optional expenses and may include such items as clergy and organist offerings; floral orders; funeral shrouds and newspaper costs. Amounts charged for these items vary with the level of services used and are added to the funeral account. The cost level depends on the choices made by you and your family. - Professional Fees:
Our professional fees reflect the costs involved in providing services that are directly related to the funeral service, and indirectly related to the provision of these services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Funeral fees take into account our high quality staff, efficient administration, and legal compliance costs. Industrial awards and Occupational Health and Safety guidelines stipulate the minimum staffing levels required to be present during many of funeral processes. These may include the "transfer of the deceased from the place of death", "preparation and dressing"; and "the actual funeral service". We spend a significant amount of time working on behind the scenes tasks including lodging statutory information with varying government departments, liaison with doctors and hospitals, crematoriums and cemeteries, clergy, newspapers, florists, clubs and societies.
It takes on average 30 to 40 staff hours to organise a professional funeral service.
