Death with Dignity? A Report on SCI/Dignity Memorial High Prices and Refusal to Disclose These Prices
Service Corporation International (SCI), whose principle brand is Dignity Memorial, is the nation’s largest and fastest growing provider of funerals and other “death-care” products. Having absorbed several of the largest death-care services in the past decade, it now operates more than 1,000 funeral homes and cemeteries in the U.S. with an estimated 16 percent of total industry revenues.
SCI says that its success results mainly from rationalizing a previously inefficient “death-care” industry. However, this rationalization has emphasized anti-consumer practices including relatively high prices that it fails to disclose adequately, aggressive sales that push customers to upgrade products purchased, and sloppy service that have led to court settlements as large as $80 million.
