Start from the itemised list
The NSW Government’s guide lists what funeral directors usually provide. Some of it is plainly a matter of choice: they “arrange floral tributes, newspaper notices and other matters if required”, and provide a hearse and, “if required, other vehicles”. It also notes you may want to include or exclude certain non-essential elements. Because a NSW funeral director must give an itemised price for each good and service before you agree, you can see what each part you take on removes from the bill.
The list will not always show everything. A NSW director must display prices for the funeral goods and services the information standard covers, but displaying the prices of anything else it offers is optional. NSW Fair Trading’s sample price list marks its extras, such as webcasting and a personalised funeral program, as optional to display. So if you are deciding what to do yourselves, ask for the price of each extra you are offered, not only the ones on the list. Reading a funeral price list walks through NSW Fair Trading’s sample line by line.
Parts a family can take on
The place
Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW lists a cemetery or crematorium chapel, your home or garden or a friend’s, and a public space such as a park or beach among the places a funeral or memorial can be held.
On the bill: in NSW Fair Trading’s sample price list, the service covers up to an hour at the director’s own venue, and a service elsewhere is charged at cost as a disbursement.
The shape of the day
Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW names four kinds of gathering: a single service in one place; a dual service that starts in one place and moves to the burial site or crematorium; a graveside service; and a memorial held after the burial or cremation.
On the bill: the sample price list prices taking the body to the place of the service and, for a burial, on from the service to the cemetery, with separate prices for a standard hearse and a luxury car. A memorial comes after the burial or cremation, so it needs no hearse.
Who leads it, and what is said
The person leading it can be a family member, a friend, a celebrant or a member of the clergy. The planning checklist also leaves room for the family’s own voices: who gives the eulogies and tributes, which poems or readings are read and by whom, and the music played. The NSW Government lists what goes in the memorial booklet among the things people decide.
On the bill: the sample price list counts a celebrant inside the director’s service charge. The NSW Government’s guide also gives celebrant or minister fees as an example of a disbursement, a fee the director pays to someone else for you. The sample lists a personalised funeral program as a separate item.
Flowers and notices
Cemeteries & Crematoria NSW’s planning checklist includes whether to place a notice in a newspaper, and offers an alternative to flowers: guests can donate to a charity instead of, or as well as, sending flowers.
On the bill: newspaper notices, flowers and a family limousine are disbursements in the sample price list.
The gathering afterwards
The planning checklist asks whether to hold a reception, gathering or wake before or after the burial or cremation, where it should be, and any special food or drink.
On the bill: the NSW Government lists hosting and organising the service, plus the wake, among the fees a quote may break down.
Time together before the funeral
The checklist also asks whether it matters to family or friends to spend time with the person after they have died.
On the bill: the sample price list charges storage in the mortuary by the day, and refrigeration plates by the hour or the day. Viewing in business hours is its own line, and viewing outside business hours is charged by the hour as a disbursement.
The lines that stay on the director’s quote
The NSW Government’s list of what funeral directors usually provide also covers the parts that are not about the gathering: collecting and lodging the legal documents, collecting and caring for the body, contacting the cemetery or crematorium to set the date and time, paying the disbursements, and registering the death with the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. When a family takes on the gathering, these are the lines left to compare between quotes.
Before you agree, a NSW funeral director must give you an itemised price for each good and service it will supply, the cost of any disbursements and the total, including its professional service fee if it charges one. Asking for that quote with and without the parts you plan to take on shows the difference in one place.
Whether a family can do everything without a funeral director is a different question, answered by each state’s own rules. This page is about sharing the work.