The price of dying: Inflation hits funeral and memorial costs

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.

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GRAND FORKS — With everyday life more expensive than it was only a few years ago, some people are finding those increased costs are impacting more than their grocery and fuel prices.

Local funeral homes and memorial businesses are reporting increased costs for their services, mostly because of increased costs from vendors, due to tariffs and inflation.

Shawn Nygaard, owner of Amundson Funeral and Cremation Service in Grand Forks, said the largest jump in cost he's seen has been related to merchandise selected by families, including caskets, vaults, urns and personalized memorabilia.

"I guess that could be associated with the tariffs that typically we do not see," he said.

The funeral home orders caskets from vendors in South Dakota and Indiana. Nygaard said following the COVID-19 pandemic, fuel surcharges on deliveries started to increase. The funeral home absorbed the extra costs at first thinking they would be temporary, but by the following year, the vendors added the increases to the cost of the caskets themselves.

The increases on caskets have been on average around $200-$250 or more, according to Nygaard. Prices for caskets found for one vendor company, Titan Casket, generally range from around $1,500 to $4,000, though some are listed for as much as $20,000, depending on materials.

Nygaard said the increased costs mean many funeral homes are keeping less inventory at a time.

"For years we have kept two caskets of every unit we show on the floor," he said, but now those options will be shrinking to showroom only and delivery on an "at-need" basis.

He added there are other increased costs that funeral homes are not passing onto customers, and those costs have impacted more of the day-to-day operations, like whether funeral homes are bringing on additional staff when needed.

General funeral costs have risen over the last 20 years anyway, he said, which has led more people to choose cremation instead of a traditional service.

“When I started back in 2002, we could provide a whole traditional service for $6,500, and now that same service we provided in 2002 for $6,500 is now $16,000 in 2026.”, Nygaard said.

Costs for headstones have also seen an increase. Darren Nelson, production manager at Grand Cities Monument in East Grand Forks, said some granite colors, like jet black granite, are more expensive now because they have to be sourced from outside the country.

“There’s only two places in the world it comes from — it’s India or China,” he said. “So with all the tariffs and everything and when the shipping was all goofed up here, it’s really affected us as far as being able to get product that we need.”

The COVID-19 pandemic also played a role in those extra prices. Nelson said one color of granite doubled in price over the course of several months.

Higher costs, along with the wait times that can come with ordering foreign-sourced granite, means many people have been ordering more domestic-sourced granite instead, which comes from places like Ontario, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and South Dakota.

Wait times for granite from China, Norway or India can be six to nine months, sometimes even over a year, while domestic granite usually arrives within a couple of months, depending on where it’s from.

“If somebody puts down $3,000 or $4,000 or $5,000 as a deposit for us to order this monument or this memorial that’s coming from India or China, it’s making it tough too,” he said. “We’ve been able to sell a lot more domestic stuff because people just don’t want to wait.”

Both Nygaard and Nelson encourage those who may be planning for a funeral or memorial to think ahead of time about what they or their loved one may want.

“Make your decisions earlier than later,” Nelson said. “The thing that I tell all my customers is, ‘Get what you want.’ This isn’t like buying a car where you go out and spend $50,000 or $80,000 on a car and if you don’t like it, you trade it off and you get a different one.”

Nygaard added that people preplanning for a funeral can meet with a licensed funeral director to discuss options and end-of-life choices that can be made ahead of time.

“Funeral service is really a sacred responsibility for all us funeral professionals, and when we see costs rise drastically like this, it’s definitely given us cause for concern," Nygaard said.

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• Jordan Rusche

Jordan Rusche is the government reporter for the Grand Forks Herald.

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