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The Spinoff
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Spinoff
High cost of dying under scrutiny as MPs call for change
A new select committee report confirms what many already know: funerals in New Zealand are often too expensive and reform is long overdue, writes Catherine McGregor in today's extract from The Bulletin. The high cost of dying in New Zealand is once again in the spotlight, following the release of a health select committee report examining cremation costs and broader funeral affordability. Triggered by a submission from advocacy group Death Without Debt (DWD), the report found that current funeral regulations impose unnecessary expenses and are outdated and difficult to navigate. 'We consider that the current process and regulations impose high costs on the public and create a barrier for people who want to organise their own funerals, particularly when their loved ones are about to be cremated,' the report concluded. The Ministry of Health has committed to reviewing the cremation regulations this year. A nation where dying costs too much New Zealand is one of the most expensive countries in the world in which to die, with funerals starting at around $7,500 for cremation and $10,000 for burial, although they can often cost a lot more, especially when venue hire and catering is included. DWD founder Fergus Wheeler blames the entrenched role of funeral directors, saying families are routinely steered into expensive packages when cheaper, simpler options exist. He argues that with minor changes to online death certification systems, families could bypass funeral directors for cremation approvals, saving themselves hundreds of dollars. The Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand (FDANZ), which represents 75% of the industry, has pushed back against what it called 'allegations of predatory behaviour', RNZ's Kate Green reports. FDANZ says staffing, compliance and property costs are the real factors behind the cost to consumers. But in its submission to the select committee, it agreed reform was needed – particularly a requirement for more transparent pricing and increases in financial aid for those unable to pay. The cost of farewell and the gap in support The issue of funeral affordability has been widely covered in The Spinoff's annual Death Week series, including a 2023 piece by Stewart Sowman-Lund that highlighted the financial stress many families face when a loved one dies. Like everything else to do with money, the poorest among us tend to suffer most, given that the Work and Income funeral grant is just $2,445 – far less than even the cheapest funeral service available. FDANZ chief executive Gillian Boyes is calling for an increase to the grant, along with a lift in the $10,000 asset-testing cap that applies to prepaid funerals, to allow elderly people to set aside more realistic sums before they enter subsidised long-term residential care. She told RNZ's Victor Waters that the government needs to 'provide better support for families, provide clearer rules around funerals, and just help the industry out. But, you know, just changing paperwork is not going to fix funeral debt.' Flameless cremation arrives in NZ As calls grow to reduce funeral costs, alternatives are emerging. One is water cremation, or alkaline hydrolysis, available for the first time in Christchurch. This morning in The Spinoff, Alex Casey reports on the inaugural NZ use of the method, which uses water and alkaline solution to dissolve remains, resulting in 90% less environmental impact than flame cremation. While its main draw is sustainability, it's also slightly cheaper than standard cremation and doesn't require a casket. The arrival of water cremation adds to a growing menu of alternatives, from eco-caskets to DIY funerals. Both the Funeral Directors Association's Boyes and Dying Without Debt's Wheeler, who holds regular public seminars on DIY funerals, say they have been frustrated by bureaucratic inaction on giving people more choice in how they farewell their loved ones. Even if water cremations remain a niche option, their arrival helps bring the prospect of cheaper, more personalised funerals a step closer for everyone. More from The Spinoff:
RNZ News
08-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
'Changing paperwork is not going to fix funeral debt': Association slams call to remove funeral directors as cremation middlemen
Photo: 123RF The New Zealand Funeral Directors Association is disputing calls from the advocacy group Death Without Debt to remove them as cremation middlemen. It follows comments from Death Without Debt spokesperson Fergus Wheeler who said funeral directors were costing people money. He explained that two doctors were required to sign off on a death for cremation - the first would have seen the body and made notes about the cause of death, and a second doctor was required sign-off on that paperwork. Currently, the system was set up so that people needed a funeral director to facilitate this second sign-off, with funeral directors billing the family for doing so - but legally, it did not have to be done this way. Wheeler called for a tweak to the Ministry of Health's existing online death documents system, allowing the first doctor's paperwork to be uploaded to the cloud to be checked by the second doctor, without the need for the funeral director to forward it on. But Funeral Directors Association chief executive Gillian Boyes said reducing the amount of paper work is not going to fix funeral debt for families. "Mr Wheeler is suggesting somehow that paperwork is what's causing the price of funerals and that's just simply not true," she said. "Anyone can do the paperwork, but many people choose to use the services of a funeral director because the funeral director is doing all the other things that are needed, such as transporting, you know, the deceased, preparing them, supporting the family, arranging the funeral, all those things are the things that cost money." Boyes said on average a simple cremation funeral could cost around $7,000 while a simple burial was usually around $10,000 to $12,000. She said there were three issues compounding funeral debt for New Zealanders. "One is you've got to have price transparency. Now, that's something that members of the Funeral Directors Association have, but not all funeral directors are required to be transparent in their pricing, so if you don't know what you're signing up for, you can't control your costs. "A second thing is an increase in the asset testing limit for prepaid funerals. That's set at $10,000 for many, many years. If people could put aside a more realistic amount, such as $15,000, then they won't go into debt because they'll have already put aside the correct amount of money. "The third thing is an increase in the Work and Income funeral grant, so that really is the protection for people who have no money at all and that's at a really unrealistic amount of about $2600 at the moment." She said funeral directors are all private businesses who have to make money in order to continue offering services. "The only support government provides is to those who are very vulnerable, so they can apply for a funeral grant through Work and Income. "Now, your income levels have to be incredibly low for that. So it really only helps a tiny percentage of the population, everyone else has to fund it themselves. "There's all sorts of issues with the Act at the moment that need resolving, tidying, making it a fairer process for New Zealanders. "The current laws are dated 1964, the Government did a first principles review of those but there's been very little action on the many, many recommendations that came out of that review. "So we think it's well overdue for the government to actually finish that work, provide better support for families, provide clearer rules around funerals, and just help the industry out. "But, you know, just changing paperwork is not going to fix funeral debt." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
RNZ News
03-06-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Advocacy group calls for removal of funeral directors as cremation middleman
Photo: 123rf An advocacy group wants to see funeral directors removed as the middleman in cremations, saying it's costing people money. Death Without Debt spokesperson Fergus Wheeler explained two doctors were required to sign off on a death for cremation - the first would have seen the body and made notes about the cause of death, and a second doctor was required sign-off on that paperwork. Currently, the system was set up so that people needed a funeral director to facilitate this second sign-off, with funeral directors billing the family for doing so - but legally, it did not have to be done this way. Wheeler said a small tweak to the Ministry of Health's existing online death documents system could fix this, ideally allowing the first doctor's paperwork to be uploaded to the cloud to be checked by the second doctor, without the need for the funeral director to forward it on. He said the cloud already existed, it just required a change of process. "You can if you understand the medical referee system, sometimes, if you're lucky, get through the system," Wheeler said. "But 99.9 percent of the public have no idea how the system works." As well as giving funeral directors permission to charge a service fee for this administration task, it also gave them the opportunity to "hook people into a package deal", charging grieving families for things they did not need. The Funeral Directors Association strongly denied this allegation to the select committee. With cremations now making up 80 percent of deaths - in part because the cost was still a lot less than a burial - Wheeler said this affected a lot of people. "We don't blame the funeral industry particularly for this," Wheeler said. "It's actually the Ministry of Health [who have] known that the system has been dysfunctional for decades." The Health Select Committee's final report into funeral debt was released last week. In it, it agreed that "the current process and regulations impose high costs on the public and create a barrier for people who want to organise their own funerals, particularly when their loved ones are about to be cremated". It encouraged the ministry to prioritise further work on updating the cremation regulations, and requested a report on the planned changes to regulations before the end of this parliamentary term. "We also encourage the ministry to consider making all documents relating to cremation available on the Death Documents website. We note that the Ministry's planned work could address the current barriers to DIY funerals." But Wheeler said those directives to the ministry were weak and lacked urgency. "You've got a pretty major social problem with funeral debt happening, and the Health Select Committee have said, well, let's fix it sometime in the next few years. It's not quick enough, it's not urgent enough," he said. The Funeral Directors Association, which represents about 75 percent of funeral homes, was approached for comment by the select committee, and its comments were included in the final report. According to the report, it "strongly refuted what it described as Death Without Debt's 'allegations of predatory behaviour' on the part of funeral homes, and said that, on the contrary, the industry has a 'caring, respectful, and professional approach'." "It maintained that, without public funding of funeral services, private funeral companies must fill the void. In so doing, these companies incur property, insurance, compliance, staffing, and other costs, which must be covered by the prices they charge." It suggested the government introduce a legislative mandate for funeral prices to be transparent - it required price transparency from its members and said it encouraged them to offer free consultations for those pre-planning and pre-paying for funerals. Comments from the Ministry of Health were also included in the report. It acknowledged the current burial and cremation processes were "outdated and disproportionate, and needed modernisation". It said previous work in this area had been delayed by Covid-19, but it was in discussions with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Department of Internal Affairs about modernising the regulation of the funeral sector. "The ministry told us it is committed to reviewing the cremation regulations in 2025," the report said. The Funeral Directors Association, the Ministry of Health and the select committee have been approached for further comment. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
