Funeral Service Surveys

2009

We conducted a survey of Massachusetts funeral establishments in January 2009.  We queried those east of Springfield.  Thirty-two responded, a response rate of about seven percent.  We are delighted that there are at least some funeral homes willing to serve those who seek non-traditional services and hope that this information will help people to locate them.

A cover letter explaining the goals of the survey was addressed to the Director of each Funeral Establishment.

The survey form posed several questions on Non Traditional Funeral Service Options and also asked for a copy of their General Price List.

Responses are posted as a table showing establishment name, city or town, the prices for immediate burial and for direct cremation, and whether the direct cremation price includes the the crematory fee.  Clicking on the establishment name will display a PDF image of their response.  Most responders included their General Price List.

2006

We conducted a survey of all Massachusetts funeral establishments in January 2006.

A cover letter explaining the goals of the survey was personally addressed to the Director of each Funeral Establishment.

The survey form posed several questions on Non Traditional Funeral Service Options and also asked for a copy of their General Price List.

Responses are posted in two different ways. 

1. A table listing only the funeral homes which responded or for which we have other information, with links to the information.
2. A table listing all  Massachusetts funeral homes, with links to their responses or other information.

Each table is sorted by zip code  The first column contains a link to the response or other info on that funeral home.  Other columns contain the business name and address.  We sorted by zip code because of the confusing way town and village names are used in Massachusetts. 
You can search the lists by town or funeral home name using the "Find" function of your browser. 
Almost all the responses are PDF image files, for which you need either Acrobat Reader or  GhostScript add-in for your browser.

Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association sent this Alert  about our survey via fax to all their members.
Comments on the Alert from Joshua Slocum, Executive Director of Funeral Consumers Alliance (our national federation).

We are delighted that there are at least some funeral homes willing to serve those who seek non-traditional services and hope that this information will help people to locate them.

1998

Our 1998 Price Survey can provide some historical context.  It didn't ask about non-traditional services.

Funeral Establishment Lists

For the 2006 survey mailing list we used the official  Funeral Establishment Database dated November 28, 2005 from the Division of Professional Licensure .

Here is the whole database as a CSV file which you can import to any spreadsheet or database program.  It includes 639 "current" and  81"expired" listings.

Here is a ZIP file of the entire content of the CD the DPL sent. Be warned  that the MS Access MDB file is set by DPL so it can only be viewed, not printed, saved or edited.  The only thing that worked was the extraction program,  "PIR.exe", which did create the above CSV file.  It wouldn't make an XLS file, as it claimed.

In 2003 we received an earlier DPL database which they maintained from 1999 to 2003 but then abandoned.  It contains names of the other licensed or registered employees at each funeral home, not of just the director (manager) as in the 2005 database.  Note that the Establishment Number in the 2003 database bears no relationship to that number in the 2005 database.
 ZIP file of 2003 database.

[updated 2009-06-06]