Getting there
Transport, and arrangements in another state
People die away from home constantly — on holiday, visiting family, in a hospital in another state. It is arranged all the time and it is less complicated than it sounds.
What this includes, and what it does not
The first column is ours to do and ours to charge for. The second is either somebody else's charge — the cemetery, the crematory, the clergy, the newspaper, the airline — or it is a thing this arrangement genuinely does not involve. Anything bought on your behalf is passed on at what it costs us.
What this includes
- Forwarding a person from here to a funeral home elsewhere, and dealing with them directly
- Receiving a person into our care from a funeral home in another state
- The permits each state wants, and the airline paperwork if the journey is by air
- Collecting from anywhere in the five boroughs, Nassau, Westchester and northern New Jersey
What it does not
- The receiving funeral home's own charges at the other end
- The airline's charges, which we pass on unchanged
The part we would rather you heard from us
Two funeral homes are involved in every one of these and each charges for its own half. Ask both for the list before you agree to either. We would rather you did.
Forwarding and receiving are the two halves of one job
Forwarding is where the person is here and the funeral is somewhere else. We collect them, do the paperwork this end, prepare them for the journey and hand over to the funeral home at the other end, which then does everything a funeral home does.
Receiving is the other direction. The death happened elsewhere, a funeral home there does its half, and the person comes into our care for the service and the burial or cremation here. Both are ordinary, both happen constantly, and one of us here spends a large part of most weeks doing them.
Two funeral homes, two bills
This is the part that surprises families and it is simple once said: each funeral home charges for its own half. Neither is charging you for the other's work, and neither can quote you the other's price.
Both of them owe you a printed price list, and you are entitled to ask both before you agree to either. Do. Ask which end is going to lead, because that decision changes which home does the larger half and it is frequently worth real money. We will tell you honestly which way round we think is cheaper, including when it is the other one.
Permits belong to states, one at a time
Each state has its own disposition and transit permits, and a permit from one does not travel into another. Whichever funeral home files, files under its own state's rules, and the receiving state may want its own paperwork before a burial or cremation there.
Some states, and some carriers, require embalming or a sealed container before a person may travel by common carrier. That is a rule of the state or of the airline and not a sales suggestion, and we will tell you which one is speaking. Ask us to say plainly which requirements are legal and which are somebody's condition of carriage — they are different things and they get run together.
By air
The person travels in a combination shipping case in the hold of an ordinary passenger flight. Airlines have their own paperwork, their own cut-off times and a limited number of places on some routes, and holiday weeks fill up. A family member on the same aircraft is common and has to be booked separately in the ordinary way.
Somebody has to be at both ends: us or the other funeral home at the airport here, and somebody appointed to meet the flight at the far end. The airline's charge is passed on unchanged and it is not a small line on the bill.
How far we collect
We collect from anywhere in the five boroughs, and from Nassau, Westchester and northern New Jersey. Beyond that, it is usually better for a funeral home local to the death to make the first collection and for us to receive, and we will say so rather than pretend the distance is nothing.
Distance and the number of journeys are on the price list as their own item, because a collection in the next street and a collection at the far end of Suffolk County are different jobs, and one journey and three are different jobs too.
Worth asking, of us or of anybody else
- Which funeral home is leading, and which is doing the smaller half?
- Have both of them given me a printed price list to keep?
- Which requirements here are the law, and which are the airline's conditions?
- Who is meeting the person at the other end, and do I have their name and telephone number?
- Is anybody in the family travelling on the same flight, and has that been booked separately?
What we do not do
Every one of these is short, and every one of them is here because a family somewhere was told the opposite of it on the day of a funeral.
Ring before you agree to anything at the other end
Which funeral home leads changes what the whole thing costs, and it is much harder to change afterwards. One telephone call, before anybody signs anything.