Keith told the Bay of Plenty Times an unattended cremation – one without a ceremony – was the cheapest option at about $5000.
A cremation with a service costs $12,000 to $14,000.
The “top end” for a funeral service was “unlimited” with casket choice, venue, catering, flowers, a video package, and number of attendees influencing the cost, he said.
Council costs were passed on to families, Keith said.
He said some New Zealanders had a “she’ll be right” attitude and thought “we don’t want to make a fuss”.
“While we know that unattended cremations and do-it-yourself funerals can work for some people … we know that they can leave families without a sense of closure or community support.”
He said a funeral was not just about saying goodbye but acknowledging the reality of death.
“When someone sits with the body of a loved one, you can see the mind starting to catch up with the heart. That’s what it means to acknowledge the reality of the death.”
Other rituals, such as placing flowers, singing a hymn, reciting a poem and carrying the casket, were physical acts of mourning that helped families process the loss.
Keith said trying to avoid the pain of loss could prolong suffering.
Legacy Funerals at Pyes Pa in Tauranga. Photo / Alex Cairns
“Funerals give people a space to mourn, to cry, to speak, to hold each other. That’s what helps us move forward.”
Keith said pre-planning and pre-paying a funeral could spare family stress. Some families may also qualify for a Work and Income funeral grant. The maximum grant amount is just over $2600.
His advice to families was: “Plan ahead, don’t rush, and don’t skip the goodbye”.
Hope Family Funerals funeral director Eva Wolf said the Te Puna business had also seen an increase in those asking for a simple, “no service” cremation – but also an increase in people pre-arranging their funerals.
Eva Wolf is a funeral director at Hope Family Funerals near Tauranga.
While happy to help keep costs down, their team had noticed grieving families with no opportunity for a goodbye could be left with “unresolved emotions”.
“A farewell does not need to be big or costly for it to give families the opportunity to pause, gather and honour the person who has died,” Wolf said.
She said it was positive to see more people pre-arranging their funeral, which ensured their wishes would be respected, eased the decision-making burden on loved ones and helped with financial preparedness.
“Believe it or not, most people actually find it quite enjoyable to think about what kind of funeral they want and, for example, what music they want played or who they would like to do their eulogy.”
Skipping funerals can lead to ‘disenfranchised grief’
Grief Support Tauranga clinical team lead Ruth Barber said she was hearing “more and more” about funerals going ahead without a service or ceremony, which she attributed to the cost-of-living crisis.
“Funerals are not cheap.”
Barber said not having a funeral could lead to “disenfranchised grief, that sense of nowhere to put your grief”.
This was highlighted during Covid times when people could not have funerals and tangi, she said.
A funeral could be “quite a reality check”.
“There’s a lot of disbelief when somebody dies, and so that collective everybody getting together to acknowledge it can sometimes help to make it feel more real.”
It also helped with the “isolating” feeling of grief.
Private funeral trend grows
A 2023 industry trends report by the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand found that nationally one in five funerals was unattended.
The association’s new (and youngest ever) president Bradley Shaw, of Whakatāne’s Gateway Funeral Services, said it was about to survey members for a new trend report coming next year.
He expected this would show a reduction in unattended funerals.
Shaw said, anecdotally, it appeared these were increasingly being replaced by more intimate and tailored invitation-only services.
Bradley Shaw is the president of the Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand.
“We believe more people are realising [not having a service] is not a positive start to their grief journey.”
Grief research late last year showed nearly 80% of people agreed a funeral supported a positive grief journey.
Shaw said a simple, private service for just close family and friends was one way to farewell someone who wanted “no fuss”.
This could cost anywhere from about $5000 to $10,000 and ranged from a basic casket, cremation and small gathering, to a service with 50 invited guests and “cups of tea” afterwards.
“No fuss doesn’t mean they don’t want anything.”
Megan Wilson is a health and general news reporter for the Bay of Plenty Times and the Rotorua Daily Post. She has been a journalist
Samantha Motion is a regional content leader for NZME. She has reported in the Bay of Plenty region for more than a decade.