SecureView: Raising the Standard of Cremation Identification

The process is straightforward:

A photo of the deceased is uploaded to the SecureView platform.

A secure link is generated and sent to the next-of-kin.

The family member logs in, views the photo, confirms identity, and uploads their own government-issued ID.

The funeral home receives a secure, timestamped confirmation record for its files.

Everything is encrypted, temporary, and HIPAA-compliant. No special software is needed. Each case costs just a few dollars—pennies compared to the risks you’re protecting against.

Why Proper Identification Matters

Cremation is permanent, and the stakes are high. Misidentification can result in devastating lawsuits, damaged reputations, and lifelong distress for families. One recent case led to a $60 million lawsuit when the wrong person was buried.

Industry leaders agree: “No identification, no cremation, no exceptions.” Waivers aren’t enough. Identification by the authorizing agent—preferably with documentation—is the gold standard and often a regulatory requirement.

SecureView gives you a secure, consistent method to perform this crucial step, especially when families can’t be there in person.

Peace of Mind for Families

SecureView is especially helpful for families who are out of town or unable to travel. Rather than arranging a rushed in-person viewing or resorting to emailing photos (a major liability), families receive a secure link and complete the ID process on their own time. They’re involved, reassured, and respected—no matter where they are.

In an era where remote participation is becoming the norm, this tool bridges distance without compromising dignity or security.

Protection for Your Business

It provides verifiable proof of identification, protects against legal action, and reinforces your professionalism. The cost is negligible compared to even one legal consultation, let alone a lawsuit.

You’re also giving your staff a reliable, repeatable workflow and a clearer paper trail—especially useful in high-volume or high-risk situations.

A New Standard for Cremation

SecureView isn’t just a tool—it’s a movement toward higher standards in cremation care. As cremation rates rise and families expect more convenience, SecureView helps funeral homes meet both the ethical duty of identity confirmation and the practical need for documentation and protection.

Adopted by professionals who understand the real-world pressures of funeral service, SecureView is setting a new benchmark for what it means to do things right.

Last week the country of Denmark once again set in place an increased age for receiving government sponsored retirement benefits.  As you can see in this article those citizens of Denmark born after 1970 will not be able to access this benefit until age 70 — up from the current age of 67, with gradual increases to the 70 mark moving forward.

As you may know, the United States, in most instances, lets citizens receive pre-retirement benefits at age 62, full benefits at age 67, and increased beginning benefits at age 70.  For each year that one delays taking those benefits an increase of 8% on your beginning benefit is earned. Here’s a chart on how those benefits might look like at different ages for someone set to receive $2500 of benefits at age 62.  (Note:  Annual Cost of Living Adjustments are not figured into the Cumulative Value at Age 80)

While the United States life expectancy rate for children born today sits at 77.4 years overall, the life expectancy rate for someone who has lived to age 65 sits at 83 years for males and 86 years for females.  So, calculating only until age 80 may be short and one who collects the higher amount at age 70 may eventually pass the 67 year old in lifetime benefits as they continue to age.

While I picked the $2,500 figure somewhat out of the air, according to the Social Security Administration, maximum initial benefits for today’s retirees in 2025 are $2,831 at age 62, $4,018 at age 67, and $5,108 at age 70.

How Does the Retirement Age and Life Expectancy figure into your Preneed Marketing?:

I will give you a couple of thoughts on how I looked at Preneed marketing and what worked for us.  To understand my thought process you need to know that I came into the business world the same year that Ronald Reagan became President and First Lady Nancy Reagan staunchly supported an anti-drug program in the United States named “Just Say No”.  Part of the “Just Say No” program was to educate children at younger ages than ever before about the negative aspects of illicit drug use.  The thought process was letting them know at younger ages simply gave more awareness and importance to the program.

• I picked up on that younger and younger education and eventually realized that we should not simply be waiting for people to walk in the funeral home door who had been told that setting aside money for an eventual funeral was a way to legally “spend-down” to help with government paid nursing home care.  Oddly enough, prior to about 1980 the thought of “soliciting” people to pre-fund their eventual funeral was thought of by many funeral operators, including myself, as potentially bad public relations that could harm your business.

• About 1990 we became bold and started sending out mailers for funeral pre-arrangement to those 65 years of age and older.  Prior to that it was only the insurance companies themselves who sent out the mailers.  That thought process kept the funeral home from looking “too solicitous”.

• In 2001 we started doing monthly small-group, one-hour seminars, aimed at those 65 and older.  We bought mailing lists, composed the letter ourselves, and offered a $20 restaurant gift certificate per couple for attending and found, through trial and error, that if we sent out 200 mailers, we would have about 10-12 couples attend which was not too many . . .  but our closing rate on those couples was about 70% — meaning we sold about 12-16 policies from that meeting.  We used a very simple in-house developed questionaire that led couples into asking for an appointment with a pre-arrangement counselor.

• One thing we learned over time was to pre-screen our mailing list and as we refined it our results became even better.  I remember that one of the big items that we screened for was “home ownership”.  People that didn’t own a home did not get an invitation to a seminar.

• At that time we were doing about 160 at-need cases per year so the seminars brought in about 70-80% of our at-need volume.  We realized that this would grow volume over time.

• A few years later we experimented with the Nancy Reagan philosophy of trying even “earlier ages” and was surprised at the number of still-working couples who took a morning off of work to attend the seminars upon invitation.  We also moved our philosophy of saying this is something “retired people” should plan for to bringing a mantra of “when you are starting to think of retirement, you should not only plan for when you will take Social Security, but you should also think of your will, your legacy, and your funeral arrangements”.   A big part of our seminars was the suggestion telling potential clientele that they should have serious discussions about their choice of cremation or earth burial and where the permanent memorialization of their cremated remains or casketed body would be.  We found this “optionality” of decisions moved people to the discussion stage.

• I found that having the discussion about permanent memorialization probably moved more people to pre-arrange than did the discussion of cremation/earth burial.  In many instances family lots were in different cemeteries and the couple needed the discussion to decide which to make use of. . . . or, our closest National Veterans Cemetery was 140 miles away and a discussion about using that cemetery versus a local cemetery often was a reason that couples took up the conversation.

• Over the years we were able to move our preneed business to a situation where we had a one to one ratio with at need calls which I think, in today’s world, should be a minimum ratio for businesses that want to grow.

• While we did have acquisitions to increase our call volume, the decision to make Preneed as big a priority as At-need played a major role in our organic growth over time.  My brother, Dave, took on this mantle and it went from a part-time gig to a more than full-time one when we needed to hire a 2nd part-time agent to folow up on seminar leads.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  My direct take on the question posed in the title of this article is that retirement age should not affect pre-need.  My reason for saying that is because you should already be prospecting the “before retirement” cohort of potential clients.

On the other hand, it may make a slight difference on the potential client’s reaction to your lead generation.  They may think that “they have plenty of time to do this” because retirement is far off.

If you don’t do monthly seminars I would suggest a call to my friend Patrick Zalusky at Laker Planning (507.327.6938) to get some pointers on how to start.

More news from the world of Death Care:

Enter your e-mail below to join the 3,164 others who receive Funeral Director Daily articles daily:

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

Deathcare Startups Are Still Raising Millions in Funding

In a profession that many — ok, most — people deem traditional, startups seem to be clamoring to be the big disruptor — the business that finally shakes things up and changes “the way things have always been done.” Sometimes, they succeed; often, they don’t. However, it always helps when they’ve won the support and substantial financial backing of wealthy investors.

Crunchbase, a platform that gathers interesting information about all sorts of companies, recently compiled a list of those involved in “innovation and investment around death and end-of-life planning” which have raised significant amounts of funding over the past few years. This list includes companies that have received equity funding of just under $2 million all the way up to nearly $80 million.

The top 10

Here are the top 10 funded startups related to death and estate planning, according to Crunchbase, along with their funding amounts (in millions):

1. Better Place Forests ($79.8) – memorial spreading forests for cremated remains
2. Trust & Will ($48) – digital estate planning and probate platform
3. Wealth.com ($46) – digital estate planning platform for wealth management firms
4. Freewill ($30) – digital philanthropy and estate planning for donors and fundraisers
5. Inmemori ($21.3) – a “virtual time capsule”
6. After.com ($20) – direct cremation company serving six states in the western U.S.
7. Meanwhile ($19) – Bitcoin-dominated life insurance
8. OpusXenta ($13) – cemetery and crematory management software
9. Earth ($10) – provider of natural organic reduction 
10. Luminary ($9.5) – digital estate planning

If you’re noticing a theme here, you’re not alone. Crunchbase also recognized that eco-friendly disposition, online estate planning, and digital tools to simplify or streamline the business of deathcare dominated the top 10 this year. The next ten include companies with similar offerings, including GoodTrust, Safewill, and Willed (all digital estate planning tools), Eirene (direct cremation arranged by app), and Catrina, Aura, and The Farewell Guide (online platforms for end-of-life planning).

The only “outlier” in the top 20 best-funded companies seems to be Parting Stone, which transforms cremated remains into solidified form and, frankly, belongs in its own category. Also, along with Better Place, Earth, and Return Home, Parting Stone offers a tangible, non-digital, product or service. 

Top takeaways

If this list of companies in which wealthy investors have entrusted their cash is any indication, the future of deathcare is digital. Not only that, it’s focused on end-of-life and estate planning … which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. By simplifying the process of preparing for death, perhaps more people will take that step, and surely (hopefully) include their designation and perhaps prepayment of their funeral and/or disposition choices in their plan.

Crunchbase predicts that “many startups will struggle to penetrate a tradition-bound sector like the funeral industry, which isn’t known for speediness in adapting to change.” That could explain two interesting facts about these lists.

First, Eirene, the cremation app that claimed the #17 spot on the list, is now defunct, despite recently raising $3 million. The Toronto-based company virtually disappeared in July, shutting down its website and terminating its license with the Bereavement Authority of Ontario, leaving no signs that it was acquired or merged.

The second curiosity related to this list is found when comparing it to who made the list in 2020, which was the last time Crunchbase explored deathcare startups. Four years ago, Better Place Forests was also on top, followed by Aura, Farewill, Cake, and Eterneva. This year, Aura dropped out of the top 10, and Farewill (a digital will-writing service that has since expanded into funeral services) didn’t crack the top 20. Eterneva didn’t make the 2024 list — maybe because its 2021 funds infusion by Shark Tank’s Mark Cuban helped it become self-sufficient. Similarly, Cake, a successful and growing digital planning service, was just acquired by Foundation Partners.

If this four-year comparison is any indication, investors are still quite keen on cremation innovation, earth-friendly ideas, and digital planning tools — and they’ve attracted the attention of much bigger fish.