Local crematory owner Ken Adair gives an inside look to the funeral home business
Ken Adair is the owner of a local funeral home, where he has experienced a 25 percent uptick in business since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Adair gave us insight into what he believes is the best way for families to pay respects to their lost loved ones, and how families should prepare for deaths in the future.
Currently, many families are opting for cremations because of social distancing guidelines. According to Adair, many families do not want to choose which family members can come pay respect to their loved ones, so many are opting to have a service when the pandemic is over.
Cremation also makes more sense economically, being that families pay an average of five grand on the cemetery alone. Adair believes families should be honest with themselves about how often they will really visit a grave, and if it is worth paying for compared to a cremation, which cuts the cemetery costs.
In addition, cremation might be a family’s only option at Adair’s funeral home.
“Nothing has come out and told me that COVID-19 is not transmissible from dead bodies,”.
Ken Adair
Thus, for safety reasons, Adair offers people who have died from COVID-19 only two options: cremation, or a direct burial.
Beyond current deaths, Adair believes it makes more sense financially for families to participate in prearrangements. Simply put, this is when you pay for a service—i.e. cremation—prior to your death. This allows you to pay today’s price, which will likely be significantly cheaper than the price in 25 years.
If you are worried about the funeral home going out of business, Adair assures that this is not an issue. The prearrangement funds are handled by third-party companies, like trusts or insurance companies, which protects the consumer.
“If the facility goes under, you have the right to take that prearrangement to any other home to see if they will honor it”
Ken Adair
The purpose of prearrangements is to protect the consumer from overpaying out of pocket. Adair encourages everyone to think ahead because no one will live forever.
“Everyone dies, and that’s a fact.”
For more information about Adair’s funeral home or to get prepared, visit the Florida Funeral home website.
