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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Security National Financial Corporation (SNFC), the Utah-based company that has interests in the pre-planning, insurance assignment, mortuary, and cemetery business reported their 2nd Quarter results of 2025 last week.

To sum up the company’s results, both of the 2nd Quarter 2025 and 6-month 2025 financials show an “overall” increase in revenue but a decrease in Earnings before taxes.  Scott M. Quist, President of the company made this comment in prepared remarks from the company press release which you can access here, “Annualizing our first half results we achieved an 8% Return On Equity (ROE) and while that is below our 13.3% 10 year average ROE, I believe that to be a credible performance given that roughly 1/3 of our revenue and equity is in the still very troubled mortgage industry. It demonstrates the financial balance and resiliency of our combined businesses.”

SNFC operates in three divisions — the above mentioned Mortgage Segment is one of those divisions.  They also operate a Life Insurance Segment which includes Security National Preneed and C&J Financial, and Cemeteries/Mortuaries Segment which consists of retail Death Care services.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I want to concentrate my take today on SNFC’s Cemetery/Mortuary Segment.  That portion of the company is pretty concentrated in the state of Utah but also has entities in New Mexico and California.  As far as for a public company segment it is fairly small and will probably do under $40 million in annual revenue.

While I mention that that number is small for a public company Death Care operation it is probably more relatable to family funeral homes and cemeteries across the United States than public companies like Service Corporation International (SCI) and Carriage Services.  While we can learn from SCI and Carriage Services and compare our funeral home financial operations to those companies they are much larger than the average funeral home in total scope.  That probably gives them discounts from suppliers and other advantages to create larger margins than most family-run Death Care operations.

Because of that reality I think a closer look at what has happened to SNFC’s Cemetery and Mortuary Segment in 2025 is relevant.  The 2Q25 report shows that SFNC’s Cemetery/Funeral Segment is lagging 2024 numbers in both Revenue and Earnings before Taxes — both for the quarter and half-year.

For the half-year ended June 30, Cemetery and Mortuary Revenue is down from $17.0 Million in 2024 to $16.2 million in 2025 and for the same time period Earnings before Taxes are down from $5.14 million in 2024 to $4.03 million in 2025.

For Revenue that is a 4.7% decline and for Earnings before Taxes it is a 21.6% decline.

I think those numbers show a staple of Death Care business where there are high “Fixed-Costs” to business and once you reach a certain amount of Revenue you can multiply profits.  It appears that is what SNFC did in 2024 but not yet in 2025.

Here is a prepared statement from SNFC President Quist on those numbers, “Analyzing the activity beneath the numbers we know that while our total service count is modestly up, our traditional service count is down and cremations are up (although we should note the percentage of cremations with services is up). Nationwide the cremation rate is now above 50%, so some of our results are market influenced since cremation services simply don’t have the same revenue as traditional services.”

I think that there are two factors at play for SNFC’s decline in Cemetery/Mortuary Revenue and Earnings numbers.  The first is that as a predominantly Utah-based Death Care operator, cremations and direct cremations are starting to catch up to the national averages as for percentage of disposition choice.  While we have seen the national providers such as SCI and Carriage Services report cremation dispositions at or near 60% of cases, the Cremation Association of North America showed Utah’s percentage of cremation in 2023 as 43%.  As that number moves toward the U.S. average it is bound to lower revenues per service for Utah providers.

The other number in the equation that would help explain a lowering of Earnings would be the great inflationary increases in the cost of doing business.  I think that may be something that is probably under-estimated in the operations of businesses today.  It is imperative that prices reflect your cost of doing business or you will lose profitability margin.

And, I think that situation is very representative of the situation of traditional funeral homes in the United States today.  Costs have gone up and prices have not kept up.  That equation would lead to less margin and less profits and I think that may be a common situation among funeral homes in North America today.

President Quist gives another explanation of the reduction in Revenues and Earnings directly related to SNFC’s Cemetery/Mortuary operations.  That is the “lag” of cemetery land sales for 2025.  He makes a comment in his prepared statements to that situation, “Our preneed land sales lag 2024, and land sales are arguably the greatest driver of profitability”.

I would opine that that situation may be a reflection of more cremation as most cemeteries have found that when cremation has grown in popularity there is less need by consumers to purchase burial lots.  While I have not seen SNFC’s cemeteries, the “lag” in cemetery land sales may be an indication that the company needs to be more aggressive in options for the cremation consumer — such as columbariums and scattering gardens.

Related — Here is the website for Security National Financial Corporations Cemetery/Mortuary Segment

Disclosure — The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Security National Financial Corporation.

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

Utah-based Security National Financial Corporation released their 2024 financial results earlier this week and CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board of the company Scott Quist made the following prepared remarks in the company’s press release on the subject:

“2024 marked another year of solid progress for our Company. Our Life Insurance Segment had its best operational year ever, delivering a 25% improvement over 2023 which was its previous best year ever.”

 

“2024 was our Cemetery and Mortuary Segment’s best year ever improving 5% over 2023 which was its previous best year ever. “

 

“It is instructive to note that our Utah based Cemetery and Mortuary group has received the “Best in State” award for the last 7 consecutive years, a very significant recognition of the quality services we provide.”

 

“Our Mortgage Segment delivered a solid performance, decreasing its loss by over $11 million dollars (64%) while increasing its revenue by over 8%. The mortgage industry as a whole continues to be profit challenged”

 

You can access the company’s press release on their 2024 financials here.

• For the year 2024 company revenues increased by 5.0% over 2023.  The company took in revenues of $334.5 million in 2024 as compared to $318.5 million in 2023.

• Earnings before Taxes for the company increased 109% for the same comparable period.  Earnings before Taxes in 2024 totaled $34.1 million in 2024 as compared to $16.3 million for 2023.

• The Cemetery/Mortuary division increased their revenue 3.4% to $33.0 million on the year as compared to $31.9 million for 2023.  Earnings before taxes for the Cemetery/Mortuary division increased by 4.9% to $8.86 million for 2024.

• Security National Financial Corporation has a presence in the Death Care business world operating funeral homes, cemeteries, preneed insurance, and insurance assignment businesses.  They operate outside the Death Care business world via their Mortgage segment.

Disclaimer–The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Security National Financial Corporation.

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