At Coleman Funeral Home, we are proud to provide the best value in high-quality funeral care in north Mississippi. We invite you to compare! We want to make it easy for you to select the right funeral care for your family. Browse the Frequently Asked Questions below and let us know how we can help.
How can I find out what services a funeral home provides and how much they cost?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires that all funeral homes maintain a General Price List (GPL) and furnish it to anyone who requests it. We go a step further than most funeral homes and post ours online; you can download it here. You can also review the FTC's guide to shopping for funerals.
There are certain items which are required by law to be listed and separately priced on that list. It is certainly a useful tool and should be obtained from any funeral home you are comparing.
However, Coleman Funeral Home has found that most consumers would prefer to bundle the services they need into one package price. These packages provide the best value for our customers and almost all of our families select one package as a starting point, rather than selecting several individual service items priced separately.
How should I go about comparing packages between funeral homes?
This is where you need to pay careful attention, because the FTC does not mandate the specific items that can or cannot be included in a package. It is important to note exactly what services are included in the package — and, even more importantly, which ones are not.
Is a casket included in the package? Is an outer burial container (vault) included? What about the opening and closing of the grave? What about the register book, the acknowledgement cards and tribute DVD? We have found that few other funeral homes will include in a package the outer burial container and grave opening and closing.
How should I begin choosing a casket from your selection?
We are proud to have in-stock at least one each of the caskets most of our families prefer. We want you to be able to see, touch and feel the casket you select for your loved one.
You can also browse our casket selection online, which you will find is not common even for funeral homes that publish their General Price List on their website. Often, you will find only a name and picture of a casket with no price and no way to directly compare. But we are proud of our merchandise quality and their prices. That's why we want to make it easy for you to compare.
We are certainly aware that caskets can be purchased from on-line retailers such as Costco and Wal-Mart. Also, funeral homes are required by FTC rules to allow use of caskets purchased from third party vendors. We thought this was interesting and we would be happy to have customers use these vendors if it saved them money. We would even order our caskets from them if it made sense.
We found out that: (1.) Costco and Wal-Mart are not registered to ship caskets to Mississippi addresses. (2.) We are already selling our caskets for about what they are charging. (3.) You often get imported (non-American made) caskets from these vendors. And (4.) there is always the potential for delayed shipping, etc.
In short, we are already providing a better value in-house than these third party vendors. We encourage you to look around on the web, and we will certainly be glad to use an outside casket. But we believe you will agree it is not worth the trouble.
If keeping costs to a minimum is my family's top concern, is cremation our best option?
Cremation is less expensive than a traditional burial, and that is an important reason for its growing popularity in the United States.
At Coleman Funeral Home, our Direct Cremation package represents the least expensive package price in this area for final disposition — and we know that, for many families, even that cost is difficult to bear. But as you choose how to honor your loved one, we invite you to consider not only cost but value. Incorporating a memorial gathering is an important part of the healing process for friends and family, and you can design the kind of service or event that is right for you.
Additionally, consider carefully the value of a final viewing and visitation. For friends and family members, this can be an important first step in the grieving process. In a visitation held before cremation, embalming and presentation in a casket can help families remember their loved one at peace and without suffering. It can also offer a chance to say goodbye — an important part of the grief process. Overlooking this part of memorialization, or foregoing it because of financial concerns, can have long-lasting effects far beyond the modest immediate cost.
