Security National Financial Corporation, the Utah-based public company with parts of its operation in the Death Care segment, reported their 3rd Quarter 2025 financials last week.

When the President of the company, in this case Scott M. Quist, starts the report in the following fashion you know that as you continue reading the report it won’t all be roses.  Quist started his report with this statement, “While the third quarter was definitely weak from my point of view. . . .  there are some definite bright spots which partially illuminate much of the hard work that has gone on.”

Quist’s commentary and the report can be accessed here.   He did go on to report that the company reported 3rd Quarter 2025 revenues from all three divisions of $89.3 million which is a 1.2% increase from the same quarter of 2024.  However, those revenues led to Earnings Before Taxes of only $10.1 million in comparison to last years comparative quarter of $15.2 million — a drop of 33%.

However, Quist’s commentary also makes this statement, “Our Cemetery and Mortuary Segment also posted improved results over Q3 2024. We are just now seeing stabilized, if not improved, preneed cemetery land sales which are a major profit driver. It is a fair statement that over the last 9 months we have completely revamped our cemetery sales force.”

For the quarter, SNFC’s Cemetery/Mortuary segment posted $8.9 million in sales as compared to 3Q2024’s number of $8.5 million — an increase of 4.5%.  And, there Earnings Before Taxes jumped 7.2% for the quarter to $3.04 million as compared to 3Q2024’s $2.84 million.

For the 9-months ended September 30, 2025, however, the Cemetery/Mortuary segment has posted revenue of $25.1 million which lags last year’s number by 1.6% and the 9-month Earnings Before Taxes has dropped 11.4% to 2025’s number of $7.07 million as compared to the 2024 9-month Earnings of $7.98 million.

Security National Financial Corporation operates businesses in the Life Insurance, Death Care, and Mortgage segments.  The holdings in Death care include funeral homes, cemeteries, a preneed company, and financial assignments.

Disclaimer —  The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a SNFC stockholder.

Funeral Director Daily take:  The report on SNFC is short and concise and not much is said about the Cemetery/Mortuary segment.  However, two things I noticed happened to be “on trend” with what I see happening in the greater Death Care business world.

Those two things are that 1) Cemeteries seem to be having a renaissance as more and more people are serious about what I term “Memorialization” of their remains and 2) that earnings to the bottom line in Death Care seem to be less on the same or more revenue — which I think is simply indicative that inflation and higher costs have grown faster than Death Care has been able to raise revenue.

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National funeral home and cemetery operator Carriage Services announced their 3rd Quarter results last week.  In total they announced total revenues of $102.7 million in revenues for the 3rd Quarter in comparison to the 2024 3rd Quarter of $100.7 million — that’s a 2% total increase.  The same report also stated that the company’s revenue for the 9 month period ending September 30, 2025, totaled $312.0 million as compared to the total revenue for the same 9-month period of 2024 of $306.5 million — that’s an increase of about 1.8% on the year so far.

That doesn’t tell the whole story, however, as the press release from Carriage Services, which you can access here, alludes to how strong the cemetery and preneed operations of the company have been.  Here’s a couple of bullet points from the press release that points to that fact:

• Total revenue grew 2.0% over the prior year quarter, driven by increased operating revenue of 5.2% primarily as a result of 21.4% growth in cemetery preneed sales;
• Cemetery operating revenue increased 12.6% over the prior year quarter, driven by a 4.6% increase in the number of preneed interment rights sold and a 15.1% increase in the average price of preneed interment rights sold
• Financial revenue increased 27.2% over the prior year quarter, primarily driven by a 27.9% increase in preneed insurance contracts sold resulting in an increase in general agency commission revenue

On the other side of the equation, funerals, I noticed that the number of funeral contracts slipped about 2% over the same 3-month (3Q) period of last year and the increase in Funeral Revenue per case was less than 1% coming in at increased revenue rate of 0.7%.  The low rate of funeral contract revenue growth makes sense when you also notice the company’s rate of cremation to burial also slightly increased for the 3Q period. . . . . Carriage Services reported a 3Q25 cremation rate of 61% as compared to a 3Q24 cremation rate of 60.4%.

Carriage Services Vice-Chairman and CEO Carlos Quezada summed up the quarter with some prepared remarks in the press release.  In part, Quezada made these comments:

“We are excited to be back in growth mode, expanding our footprint this quarter through strategic acquisitions of businesses that served over 2,600 families and generated more than $15 million in annual revenue last year. At the same time, we divested certain non-core assets to reallocate capital towards better long-term value creation opportunities.

Total operating revenue grew 5.2% year-over-year, driven by 21.4% growth in cemetery preneed sales combined with financial revenue growth of 27.2%, reflecting the continued success of our national prearranged funeral and cemetery strategy. These results highlight the strength of our team, the effectiveness of our business strategy, and the growing demand for the premier experiences we deliver. Purposeful Growth in Action – Building Momentum Toward Our 2030 Vision.”

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  Carriage Services management has been upfront in the past couple of years letting shareholders know that they re-allocating the assets of the business to set up greater success in the future.  They have sold some business units and acquired others — which in some areas makes comparable financial data hard to interpret without knowing what has been sold and acquired.

However, from the success of their cemetery segment and this knowledge that their new preneed agreements seem to be bringing more revenue to the bottom line, I conclude that they seem to be on the right track.

From my point of view, the consumer rarely stands still and it appears to me that part of the Carriage Services’ management goal is to be ahead of the curve for that consumer and have the right products ready for tomorrow’s consumers.  It’s an ongoing task that could pay big dividends in the future.

Disclaimer —  The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Carriage Services.

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This article from Yahoo Finance will inform you that the major indexes of the American stock market all closed at record highs last Friday.  During the same week the 3rd Quarter of the year closed and the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) reported a close that indicated a 3.60% increase for the year-to-date.

Below you will see a chart of the individual four stocks that make up the Funeral Director Daily DCI Index and how they have performed in comparison to the major indexes for the Year-to-Date (YTD) 2025 up to the end of the 3rd Quarter on September 30 2025.  You will notice that the DCI trails every sector with the possible exception of Consumer Staples for stock price appreciation for YTD 2025.  One possible reason for this, however, is the small sample size of public companies with at least a portion of their business in Death Care.

As you can see funeral home, cemetery, and crematory operators Carriage Services and Service Corporation International have had positive results, as far as stock price apprecition goes,  so far in 2025 while the other two members of the DCI, Matthews International and Security National Financial Corporation have seen their stock price drop during the year.  It’s difficult to know why, but both Matthews International and Security National Financial have other operations outside of Death Care which may be holding back their stock appreciation in what has been, as noticed by the stock index gains, a rather robust period for public stock investors.

Market Segments performance for YTD 2025 up to September 30.  Source:  LPL Research Factset

How About the Long-Term:  Just for the fun of it I went back to October 3, 2015, and looked at price appreciation (as recorded on Yahoo Finance) of the major indexes and also of the stocks that make up the Death Care Index.  If you had had $10,000 of either the index or a particular stock on October 3, 2015 and still held the index or stock, here’s what those indexes or stocks would be worth today (10/03/2025):

• Dow Jones Industrials Index:  $28,502
• Nasdaq Composite Index:  $50,780
• S&P 500 Index:  $34,992

And, here’s a chart of the Death Care Index values for the that hypothetical $10,000 investment as of October 3, 2015:

Related Information:

Disclaimer:  The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, and Security National Financial Corporation.

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There is no doubt that while many investors (and President Trump) have waited for the Federal Reserve to set lower interest rates going forward and negotiated tariff rates lots of other investors have simply stayed invested and have found gains in the stocks of the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and Nasdaq.  Those indexes have returned gains of 10.4%, 7.1%, and 12.6% respectively year-to-date (up to September 5) in 2025.

And, of course, if you had invested in the Morningstar Global Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Index, that you can read about here, your investment would have grown 26.4% year-to-date up to September 5.

However, if you had put your money into the four stocks that comprise the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) from January 2 to September 5, 2025, you would be sitting on a negative return of just less than 1% for the same time period.  The unscientific Death Care Index is comprised of owning one share of stock of each of four public companies that have at least a portion of their revenues coming from Death Care.

Those stocks are Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, Matthews International, and Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC).  The DCI had a cumulative value on January 2, 2025 of $155.13 and on September 5, 2025, virtually two-thirds through the calendar year, the DCI rests at a cumulative value of $153.88  —  for a decrease in value of just under 1%.

Here’s a graphic of the information contained above:

Carriage Services bucks the trend — Carriage Services stock value increased in the time period from $39.02 per share to $42.74 per share, an increase of 9.53%.  As you can see from the chart above they were the only DCI stock to have a measurable gain for 2025’s first eight months.

This article from Yahoo Finance reports keys that management mentioned in their 2nd Quarter 2025 remarks that led to that increase.  Included among those key factors were:

• Funeral Segment volume growth
• Strong Preneed sales momentum
• Overhead Cost reductions
• Portfolio repositioning — The divestiture of non-core assets (presumably funeral home and cemetery facilities) coupled with the acquisitions of “higher growth, high-margin properties” (presumably funeral home and cemetery facilities).

Disclaimer-– The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, and Security National Financial Corporation.

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Propel Funeral Partners (PNP) which I believe is the 2nd largest Death Care provider in Australia and New Zealand and the largest “publicly traded” Death Care company in those countries reported their year-end results in late August.  Propel’s fiscal year covers the time period of July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024.

For that Fiscal Year 2024, the company’s revenue was up to AUS $209.2 million (US $ 140.92 million) which is a 24% increase over the prior year and the company’s Net Profit After Tax (NPAT) was AUS $23.4 million (US $ 15.8 Million) which is up 12.2% over the same period for Fiscal Year 2023.

It should be noted, however, that those numbers include part-year operations from eleven acquisitions completed during FY2024.

Management made the following comments in their press release of August 27, 2024, which you can access from this website.  You also can access a very well done Power Point presentation about the company from that same link.

• “FY 2024 was another record year for Propel”

• “The Company experienced material growth in key operating and financial metrics, despite the higher inflationary and interest rate environment and a contraction in industry death volumes, which is expected to be temporary.”

• “Total funeral volumes were 21,655 — up approximately 20% over the previous year”

• “Comparable funeral volumes contracted 6%”

• “Average Revenue per funeral was AUS $6,635 (US $ 4,469) — which was up 4% over FY2023

• “Comparable Average Revenue per funeral was up 5.5% over FY2023”

Here is the Propel Funeral Partners website

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I’m not a stockholder, but I like Propel Funeral Partners.  I like companies that exhibit growth over a period of time and have the ability to coninually do that as compared to companies with staggered growth and lagging patterns to them.  In my opinion, continual gradual improvement, in many metrics, over time is the cornerstone of a highly functioning company.

Take a look on Slides 10 and 11 of the Investor Presentation of which I have provided a link.  You will see the graphs going in all the right directions over the past decade in all of the following categories:

• Funeral Volume
• Operating EBITDA
• Total Revenues
• Operating Net Profit
• Average Revenue Per Funeral

In addition you will see the potential of the company as the projected demographics of the number of deaths in Australia and New Zealand are presented and show great opportunity to Death Care companies.

Thirdly, although I’d like to know where the statistics come from, there is a pie-chart showing Propel’s market share of deaths growing to 9% at the same time that the largest provider in Australia and New Zealand, InvoCare, has dropped 4% of market share.

Finally, the presentation points out that Propel Funeral Partners has “Founder led management with significant ownership and industry experience” that has built the company from 1 to 198 locations.

Compare that to InvoCare that was just taken private by one of the biggest private equity companies in the world. . . . They will have resources, but do they have “operational feel” to make use of those resources in the right places?  In my opinon, that is a question that bears watching.

On the down-side, I would like more information as to why “Comparable funeral volumes” contracted 6%.  Management mentioned a “temporary contraction in industry death rates”.  But, is that the only reason?

In conclusion, Propel Funeral Partners seems to be doing things right and is a company to watch in our profession.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”