Little & Sons Funeral Home Indianapolis, Indiana (2024)

FAQs

How much does it cost to be buried in Indiana? ›

Final Expense & Burial Insurance in Indiana. In Indiana, the average cost for a burial and funeral is $5,600. This price tag doesn't include the casket, flowers, and other miscellaneous things typically involved in a funeral. When you add up all the extras, final arrangements can easily top $9,000.

Understanding the funeral industry landscape

You may find it surprising that less than 80% of funeral homes in the U.S. are privately owned by families, individuals or small chains. Even more surprising is that more than 20% of all funeral homes in the country are owned by large corporations.

Service Corporation International (SCI) is the largest funeral home company in the world, with a network of over 2,000 locations across the United States and Canada.

Heaton,Heaton-Bowman-Smith & Sidenfaden Chapel, the oldest funeral home in the State of Missouri and the oldest business firm in the City of St. Joseph, was founded in 1842 by David J. Heaton at Sparta, Missouri, the former county seat of Buchanan County.

You do not have to purchase a casket from the funeral home. You may also build your own casket or be buried in a cloth shroud.

A casket often is the single most expensive item you'll buy if you plan a "traditional" full-service funeral. Caskets vary widely in style and price and are sold primarily for their visual appeal.

The most expensive part of a funeral is typically the basic services fee of a funeral home. The median cost of basic services fees is about $2,300. If you choose a traditional funeral and burial, your highest cost will likely be a metal casket. Metal caskets can cost around $2,500.

Sale of Casket: Funeral homes also sell caskets to make money. The sale of caskets happens to be one of the most profitable ventures that funeral homes engage in. Usually, they make the caskets necessary for each family. And to say the least, the coffins are priced to make a profit.

A fraud inquiry has begun into the funeral plan provider Safe Hands, which collapsed leaving thousands of people with lost savings. Some 46,000 people had paid into a fund towards future funeral costs.

Why are funerals so expensive? ›

A funeral home is a 24-hour, labor-intensive business, with extensive facilities (viewing rooms, chapels, limousines, hearses, etc.), which must be factored into the cost of a funeral. A majority of the expense is typically in the funeral home professional fees and merchandise for the funeral or memorial itself.

1. Alexander the Great- $600 millionThis ancient Macedon king who presided over the largest empire in the world from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas enjoyed the most expensive funeral till date. He passed away in 323 BC and was placed in Gold Casket and transported in a gold carriage pulled by 60 horses.

If the human remains are properly preserved they can be stored for longer periods of time. In most cases, so long as the remains are properly refrigerated, funeral homes can store a body for a few days to a few weeks.

The earliest evidence of wooden coffin remains, dated at 5000 BC, was found in the Tomb 4 at Beishouling, Shaanxi. Clear evidence of a rectangular wooden coffin was found in Tomb 152 in an early Banpo site.

The first evidence of cremation in the archaeological record dates to 20,000 B.C. in Mungo Lake, Australia. In the Middle East and Europe, there is evidence of cremation as early as the Neolithic period (9500 B.C).