Redwood Funeral Society
P. O. Box 4887
Santa Rosa, CA 95402
707.568.7684
info@funeral.org

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Redwood Funeral Society
To protect and defend individual choice for dignified, ethical, and fairly priced death care, through education, referral, and advocacy.

Serving the California Counties of Lake, Marin, Mendocino, Napa, Solano and Sonoma

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Funeral societies and why are they important to you
Death is something most people in our society are uncomfortable dealing with. We don't like to talk about dying, and on a purely physical level, we don't want to think about what is going to happen when we die. Most people don't even think about making funeral arrangements until after a loved one has died. Very few people sit down and plan out what they want--and don't want--done for them, to them, and about them, once they die. For most us, when a loved one dies, we are too emotionally distraught to be able to make sound decisions about how the body is to be handled and what is to be done to it. Most people just walk into the nearest mortuary, barely listen to what is being told to and shown them. They just sign on the bottom line and leave, waiting for the funeral to begin some days or weeks later.

Funeral societies started because individuals became aware of how mortuaries can take advantage of grieving families. They also recognized that there were abuses throughout the funeral industry. One of the first nonsectarian funeral societies was the Funeral Consumers Alliance. Other funeral societies sprang up, like the Redwood Funeral Society, with the same goals: monitoring funeral industry practices, help insure local compliance by working with the state agencies regulating cemeteries and mortuaries, such as the State of California's Cemetery & Funeral Bureau, and providing education and information to consumers to enable them to make intelligent choices about death care.

• The average funeral purchase is now the third highest single cost in life, following close behind the purchases of houses and cars. (Federal Trade Commission (FTC))

• Funeral purchasing is one of the top abuses of the elderly. (Consumer's Union).

• Less than 30% of the funeral industry complies with laws introduced over ten years ago. (FTC)

• The settlements of lawsuits against California's funeral industry have reached into the hundreds of millions of dollars as abuse of the dead (and their survivors), skyrockets. Violations at funeral homes rarely draw harsh penalties. (Sacramento Bee)

• From a little over two million deaths a year, the funeral industry makes a profit of over twenty billion dollars. (Wall Street Journal) California's $1 billion-plus funeral industry is the nation's largest and the average cost of a funeral here is $7,000. (Sacramento Bee)

• The funeral industry's very high yield on their stock is enhanced by the industry having the lowest rate of bankruptcy. (Harper's Index and The Investor's Business Daily)

• The cost of death has risen three times faster than the cost of living. (National Funeral Director's Association)

• For many people, the cost of a funeral is equal to a full year of savings, or the cost of a used car, plus taxes. (Motley Fool)

• Over the last few years, the death-care industry has been dominated by a few companies that buy local funeral homes -- such as Service Corp. (SCI), Stewart Enterprises (STEI), and Alderwoods Group (AWGI). You may not realize it, but your local funeral home may be owned by one of these giants. As competition has decreased, prices have increased. (The Motley Fool)

The Redwood Funeral Society and other nonprofit funeral society and consumer alliance organizations across the nation have become known to the funeral industry and state and federal regulators as funeral industry watchdogs, and are the only national consumer groups that fight against a cornered death care market for this last civil right.

Other Facts The Funeral Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Did you know that that "economy" $3,500 casket the funeral home shows you may have cost them only $700 wholesale?

Did you know that you can buy a casket from any casketmaker--locally, or through the mail, even over the Internet--and not only does the funeral home you choose have to use it, but according to federal law, they are not allowed to charge you a fee for using that casket?

Did you know that embalming, contrary to what many funeral directors claim, is not required by California state law, does not disinfect the body, and does not preserve the body for long periods of time. Embalming will not stop the body from decomposing. Embalming is done solely to make the body look lifelike for a short period of time, and because an embalmed body is easier for a mortician to handle.

Although all life decomposes after death occurs, there is no inherent danger from dead bodies. You do NOT have to choose embalming if you want to be able to view a body, even though a a mortuary price list may imply this in their General Price List (GPL). Most mortuaries allow you to view an unembalmed body, although they will limit the amount of time the body may be on view, and may limit how many people can be present at the viewing.

RFS recommended mortuaries will allow you to have a traditional funeral without embalming a body if the condition of the body allows for it. You might also want to remember that you do not have to call a mortuary as soon as someone dies, as no law in California governs how long you may keep a body at home, because there is no health concern involved. You can also have a home funeral, without even hiring a funeral director! For more information on this, go to Final Passages.

Did you know that that $200+ rubber gasket or "protective seal" that the funeral director tells you is supposed to keep the casket airtight and keep the body from decomposing may actually have cost the funeral home only a few dollars? And that such gaskets don't keep the body from decomposing? The fact is that these gaskets might slow down the rate of decomposition, depending on how many anaerobic bacteria are present. This creates a gaseous and toxic "stew" that often corrodes the casket itself and even can cause the lid of the casket to explode. (To counteract the effect of exploding caskets, coffin companies now sell a "burping" casket that will vent off these gases to reduce the risk of explosion.)

Did you know that in, while some states or areas require cemeteries to line graves with concrete (for reasons other than any having to do with the rate of decomposition); in most states they aren't required. Cemeteries like people to buy them so that the earth and grass over the grave doesn't subside. This benefits the cemetery aesthetically, and makes it easier for them to mow the grass. But such liners do not protect the body or the casket.

Did you know that a mortuary and cremation directors are required by federal law to provide you with a current General Price List when you drop in to their place of business or telephone them? They are also required to mail out a current General Price List if you cannot make it into their place of business.

Did you know that many funeral directors are professionals who are highly trained and experienced in pushing and pulling on your emotions and any guilt or unresolved issues you may have had with the deceased, to easily manipulate grieving family and friends into paying far more than they really want or can afford to--often more than the deceased would have wanted?

Learning as much as you can before the need for after-death care arises will help put you in charge of making sound decisions, rather than being "guided" by the funeral or cremation director's idea of what you or your loved one should have.

All Funeral and Cremation Societies Are Not Equal

With the success of the volunteer and nonprofit funeral consumer societies, such as the Funeral Consumer Alliance and Redwood Funeral Society, which led to the FTC investigations of the funeral industry and the resulting Funeral Rule, the for-profit funeral industry decided to take advantage of the obvious confusion that would arise when they started calling themselves "societies".

And so we see funeral companies, such as the Neptune Society, which are in fact for-profit funeral, mortuary, cremation and cemetery providers, not nonprofits whose sole aim is to educate the consumer. The Neptune Society is one of the highest priced mortuaries on the market, and have the highest rate of lawsuits.

True funeral societies provide educational services only. Some develop contractual agreements with one or more funeral and cremation providers in their membership area, wherein the providers agree to give society members a discounted rate on their services. Funeral societies do not themselves provide any services that are performed by the funeral industry, including doing funerals, cremations, and burials.