Funeral Director Daily recently learned that holders of pre-need funeral plans from Safe Hands Plans, Ltd. will initially receive about 10% of their investment back as authorities have “clawed back” funds from resources left when the company was declared insolvent in 2022.  It is estimated that 46,000 consumers had invested in the British plan to pre-plan and pre-pay one’s funeral expenses.

This recent article from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) indicates that “planholders could receive initial repayments – of between 8.5pence and 12.5pence for every pound they lost – by the end of June.”  That would be the equivilent of receiving 8.5 to 12.5 cents on every American dollar invested.

Funeral plans are now regulated by the British Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) but Safe Hands Plans was one of the firms that was in the business before the regulation was started — Safe Hands Plans collapsed about 4 months before the FCA began their regulation of the industry.

FRP Advisors, who is the government authorized authority trying to recover funds has said that the process with Safe Hands Plans “had been “complex” and had required extensive legal action both in the UK and abroad – including in the Cayman Islands – to trace funds that are due to creditors”.

In any regard the linked article tells of consumers who are not happy with the results and consumers who have suffered significant loss alienating them with the funeral and pre-planning industries.

One consumer made this comment in the linked article, “I’m disappointed.  Somebody else has to now find the money and arrange my funeral when I’m not here because I would never buy another [funeral plan].”

Great Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) “confirmed it was progressing on an active criminal investigation into alleged fraud by Safe Hands Plans Limited and its parent company SHP Capital Holdings Limited”.

Related — The British Financial Conduct Authority

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I think the regulations of funeral planning in Great Britain is a big step in the right direction.  Unfortunately, the Safe Hands Plan case has given negative publicity to a generally good product and what should be a smart decision by British consumers.  It’s a public relations issue that our British friends in the pre-need market need to overcome to win over the trust of their consumers going forward.

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Every day I search out articles about Death Care services to provide me with information on topics of interest in our profession/industry.  One of the things that has been extremely disappointing to this life-long funeral director and funeral home owner is the amount of negative publicity our profession piles on itself because of what I call “bad actors” in the profession.

Virtually every day there are newspaper articles written about the negative effects funeral homes have had on the families that they are supposed to be serving.  Those articles are generally about unfulfilled promises but many times are much worse — such as having unsanitary conditions for the storage of bodies or even worse. . . such as just not doing what they said they did.  Many of these instances happen to be telling families that their loved ones have been cremated when, for whatever reason, the deceased is still on the funeral home premises and has not been cremated.

In fact, these incidents are so regular worldwide that Funeral Director Daily has quit writing about most of them.  If we did I’m guessing that you would hear of some type of negative incident weekly.  And, simply reporting on, and calling out the bad actors, is not something I find of interest to my readers.

However, every once in a while I am moved to say something.

The latest incident that I read about was an incident from Maryland which I learned of on January 27.  Here is an article and news story out of Baltimore on the situation.

This article from the BBC tells of a situation in Great Britain last year that shocked the British public.  The article from November 2024 states that it is prompting a review of the “funeral sector”.

One community, The Wealdon District Council, recently completed their assignment from the Ministry of Justice and Minister for Local Government which asked for “visits to be carried out as a matter of public reassurance in the largely unregulated industry”.

The Wealdon District Council released their findings to the public a couple of weeks ago.  In that release titled “Report shows confidence in funeral directors”  a total of 25 funeral directors, some with more than one branch in Rother and Wealden, were given public reassurance following assessment of hygiene, facility conditions and capability, traceability and transparency, dignity and condition of deceased people in their care and pre-paid funeral plans.  Here is that release.

That article also went on to say this “all but two of Rother and Wealden’s funeral directors were given letters of public assurance.  Officers were unable to carry our check on Aurora Funerals in Crowborough or Fenix Funeral Directors, listed in Bexhill, and public assurance was not given.”

Related Article — Just to prove my point about the number of these types of article, this article titled “Complex investigation into Glasgow funeral directors continues eight months after police sweep” was published by STV News the same day the Wealden District Council report was published.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I find it really sad that this type of “assurance” had to be given to the general public about funeral homes and funeral directors.  We should be better than this.

I’ve never been perfect in anything in my life, however, every single family that I served over 33 years got 100% effort and trustworthiness from me. . . . And, that included familes I knew that I would not get paid from.  To me, serving families in need with everything I had to offer was simply a part of my humanity.

We are entering a new generation of funeral consumers who can now facilitate their choices for disposition, celebration, and memorialization without the use of traditional funeral homes. If traditional funeral homes want to stay relevant with the consumers we hope to serve we cannot sink so low that we need government offices telling those consumers that we are “OK”.

It’s simply time to “Raise our game” to a level that there is absolutely no question in consumers’ minds that we will do what we say we will.

The Funeral Director Daily article published last Friday was about the World Economic Forum (WEF) recently held in Davos, Switzerland.  The world’s business leaders met there and one of the concepts for business growth that came out of that forum was “Trust”.  I think it is time that funeral directors, as a whole, re-establish ours.

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