My Opinion: “Mailed cremation remains are a problem waiting to happen”

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Earlier this month the United States Postal Services issued a notice that related “effective March 1, 2025, customers will be required to use USPS Priority Mail Express Cremated Remains boxes (BOX-CRE) for all cremated remains shipments. This includes remains shipped as jewelry, blown glass or other artisan works of art.”

There is no doubt that cremation, as a choice of disposition, continues to grow.  That is reflected in the number of crematories that are in the United States.  From statistics that I was able to gather it appears that the United States had 425 working crematories in 1975, 1,468 working crematories in 1999, and 3,374 active working crematories in 2021.

However, with the number of death care establishments totalling somewhere between 16,000 and 19,000 in the United States that would mean that not every extablishment has their own crematory.  i.e. there are still many “trade crematories” operating for those funeral homes that provide cremation “services” but not on their premises.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

I operated a funeral home without a crematory for about 25 years until our funeral home built a new facility and included a crematory in the design.  Prior to that we drove our cremations about 60 miles to the nearest crematory where the deceased was cremated and the cremated remains were sent back to our funeral home via delivery service or the United States Postal Services (USPS).

As the Chief Executive and owner of the funeral home a constant worry that I always had was that the cremated remains would get lost in the transit back to the funeral home.  And, it almost happened once.  In that case it happened to be a death that occured in Florida and a trade service did the cremation for us and let us know that they had delivered the remains to the USPS to be shipped to our funeral home.  The trade service provided receipts and a tracking number.

Luckily, a service was scheduled for a month out and when we did not recieve the remains in a few days we inquired of the trade service.  To make a long story short after about two weeks of apprehension and anxiety the remains were found on a shelf in a post office between the Florida post office and the final desitination.  There was never an explanation of why the remains’ journey was stopped at this particular post office and, needless to say, we were happy they got moving again and arrived at our funeral home before the expected services.

That experience has made me very wary of the idea of sending human cremated remains through a delivery service including the USPS.  While I am not an attorney and cannot tell you of the legal ramifications I can tell you the damage a non-delivery of cremated human remains could do to your brand if a family did not receive the remains.

My suggestion is that if you are a cremation provider without an onsite crematory you need to be personally picking up these remains at your provider and hand delivering them to your funeral home and/or the families you serve.  That’s the only way that you can virtually guarantee delivery of these cherised remains to their families.

Let’s say that our funeral home still brought these deceased people to a trade crematory 60 miles away.  I would be putting an additional $75 charge on cremations to cover the cost of a driver at $20 per hour plus our gas expense to drive to the crematory and pick these remains up in person.

My guess is that $75 additional charge, even in a price sensitive market, would be a small price in comparison to a lost remains and an irate client family.

Insurance might cover potential legal losses and the costs of litigation if this ever happened to you, but the negative publicity on your brand would take a big hit if the issue hit the press.  Why risk that?

Related — “Lost ashes in Fort Myers:  USPS employee speaks out”.  Video news story and print article.  WINK News – Fort Myers (FL)

Related — “New USPS Shipping Requirement for Shipping Cremated Remains.”  Effective March 1, 2025.  From a NFDA news release.

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