When funeral arrangements must unexpectedly be made away from home, and family hearts are filled with mixed emotions, it is difficult to consider costs. If you want to limit costs, the best practice is to contact the funeral firm in the area where the funeral service and burial is to take place.
What to do first
Call Families First Funeral Care & Cremation Center
(912) 777-4473 day or night
We take charge from then on and make all the arrangements for conveying of the deceased to the local funeral home for embalming and preparation for return to their home state. You only need contact us with some basic information and call us when you return to set a time for an arrangement conference. For us to assume the costs as outlined, the death must have occurred in one of the forty-eight contiguous states and you must call us direct so we can engage our representatives at the place of death. (Do not contact a funeral firm where the death occurs. We Must do this.)
The standard receiving policy in most other funeral homes is to give you a credit for the embalming against their standard prices. You must pay all other charges such as transfer casket, transfer container, out-of-town funeral home facilities, professional and staff services, transfer documents and transportation charges. These costs can easily mount up to $1200 dollars or more, depending on the cost of transportation and charges of the out-of-town funeral home. Transportation costs differ and fees are not uniform from funeral firm to funeral firm, so we cannot say exactly how much this might be.
What do you save?
We pay all most normal out-of-town costs except cash advances. These normal charges include out-of-town removal service, standard embalming, transfer of remains to airport, outer transfer container, all documents for transfer and burial, out-of-town funeral facilities, professional staff and services. This means your only additional costs are transportation and transfer of remains to the funeral home from the airport. Since we use a light weight transfer casket and outer container we help to keep the air fare to a minimum.
International Travel
If a family member dies while traveling outside the United States, the U.S. Embassy will come to your assistance. You should call us immediately when a death occurs abroad. We are well-versed in the procedures for returning the deceased to the United States.
Other Conditions
If the death occurs outside of the forty-eight contiguous states or your family has already engaged another funeral firm, we will apply liberal credits to services provided by others when selecting one of our complete full-service funerals. Our membership in the National Funeral Directors Association as well other members in other national organizations provide us with funeral service contacts world wide.