Arranging a funeral takes over 52 hours, study suggests

Research by the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) has found that on average, it takes over 52 hours to arrange a funeral.

The NAFD has gained research from contributions from small, independent, family, mid-sized and larger funeral providers and found that on average, it takes twenty more hours today to arrange a funeral in comparison to 2009, as it now takes 52 hours and 42 minutes compared to 32 hours and 53 minutes.

The report found, the personalisation and increasing complexity is the main contributor to the change, for example there is an increase in the length of time the average arrangement lasts, which has increased to 2 hours compared to just under 40 minutes.

Previously, there were fewer variables in funeral arrangements, so the meeting generally completed in a shorter period of time. 

Today, not only are meetings often more complex but members reported more instances of abandonment, where meetings do not end in a contract to arrange the funeral as people are now encouraged to shop around.

The study showed one medium sized form calculated the average “employee weeks” per funeral in the business today, compared to when they joined the business, because of the changing nature of the funeral they were arranging. They reported that “we currently need 1.85 employee weeks to deliver a funeral (74 hours). This is an increase in 40 years.”