If “death is a debt that each person can only pay once”, as Shakespeare said, it comes with a very hefty bill for the relatives of the deceased responsible for organizing his funeral… While the biggest Pricing uncertainty reigns on the funeral market, new figures demonstrate the prohibitive cost of funerals in France. Focus.
Finally numbers!
Until now, when we estimated the cost of funeral ceremonies in France, we mentioned a price range between €3,000 and €5,000. A sketchy assessment, as the figures on this market are rare. It was indeed necessary to refer to a study carried out in 2019 by UFC-Que Choisir among 664 funeral homes. The association then noted an average cost of €3,815 for a burial and €3,986 for a cremation, specifying that the bill could vary dramatically depending on the brands, services and location. But that was before the pandemic and the surge in inflation…
The study of unprecedented scale published by Silver Alliance and Simplifia at All Saints’ Day is therefore welcome to shed light on this opaque sector. This survey covered some 50,738 funerals organized in 2023 by funeral agencies equipped with Simplifia services.
This represents around 8% of deaths occurring in France that year. And when it comes time to take stock, the bill turns out to be particularly steep since the average cost of a funeral reaches €4,730, knowing that it takes €4,434 for cremation (43.5% of cases) and €5,044 (56 .5%) for a funeral! The cheapest region here is Occitanie (€4,361.59), followed by PACA (€4,399.35) and Nouvelle-Aquitaine (€4,452.09). Surprisingly, Normandy has the highest bill (€5,350.44), ahead of Île-de-France (€5,316.79) and Pays-de-la-Loire (€5,155.68). .
Benefits weigh heavily
If the authors of this study cannot make a strict comparison with previous years since it is a first edition, the observation is equivocal. “The trend observed in the funeral sector indicates an increase in funeral costs. This increase is partly due to the increase in expenses for optional services and the growth in overall costs of funeral services, linked to the inflation of raw materials and the personalization of funeral services,” explains Benjamin Zimmer, director Associate Delegate of the Silver Alliance.
In detail, this investigation reveals several significant elements. Thus, the “basic costs of funeral directors constitute a significant part”. In fact, it costs €2,895 on average just for the organization and logistics: formalities, transport, preparation of the body, burial chamber, burial, burial or cremation. There is also €704 on average for the funeral ceremony, knowing that prices fluctuate between the religious or civil ceremony.
On the other hand, the essential coffin – obligatory even for a cremation – costs on average €1,343, but can be much more expensive in the case of a burial since the family takes special care of it. Unsurprisingly, the choice of burial is more expensive (€5,044) than that of cremation, although the latter has a high price (€4,434).
Finally, households spent on average €1,115 on optional services in 2023. We are referring here to floral arrangements, the choice of a funeral monument or even the publication of a death announcement in the press.
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