Modernizing the funeral rule with online pricing disclosures

FTC regulation & SCI's position in it

I’ve been giving more thought about how to structure the composition of these posts. If I was to be overly literal, I’d just link some of the motivating factors by the FTC to modernize the funeral rule (it’s basically to bring it up to speed with the digital age) along with examples of how it’s being done by SCI. But that doesn’t actually work very well because I see the clickthrough rates of links and they’re terrible. That is probably because most are read through email and then you’re flipping between an email and hyperlinked material which is not a good way to read almost anything I’ve ever made (but I’d rather adapt).

So, if you don’t know, the funeral rule simply describes a set of regulations imposed by the FTC over the death care service industry. It surrounds pricing disclosures of offered services (whether this be cemeteries, funerals, cremation, etc). The historical precedent stems from the opacity of this market in a pre-internet era and its position over consumers to leverage the value of their grief. That puts the provider in a position to rip out the eyes of consumers, thus, some of our regulatory bodies (namely the FTC) put themselves into a spot to provide market oversight many, many moons ago. However, the funeral rule itself was actually only ever was adapted (until recently) to in-person visits and telephone calls as the framework was made in 1984. Oddly that year is turning out to be a special year for the contents of this blog insofar as historical events are concerned but that’s about something else.