Thursday, 31 December 2009

Primary Duties Of A Funeral Director

By Alvin Cruise

The main task of a funeral director is to take care of everything from the ceremonial rituals of the funeral.

There are four essential tasks of a funeral director, they are: (a) transporting the body to the mortuary; (b) embalming and readying the body for service; (c) preparing for the services for friends and family to pay their last respects to the deceased and; (d) the final act of burial or cremation as per the customs of the family.

These duties cover a wide variety of tasks, including arrangement of hearse for transporting the deceased, deciding the place and time for memorial service and also sending obituaries in the local media as well as the newspapers. In addition, funeral directors also take care of things like arrangements of flowers and bouquets for each service, embalming and clothing the body, arrangement for shifting of the family and relatives from one service to another etc.

A funeral director has a lot of responsibilities other than the ones mentioned above, including performing the essential paperwork formalities as required. He helps the relatives in obtaining a death certificate. He also acts as a facilitator for settling claims of insurance for the family as well as helping them take benefit of schemes like seniors' burial support. He also helps in clearing annuity and pension money, if any, of the deceased to the dependants of the deceased and assists the family in assessing the costs of the whole funeral service.

He also has to coordinate with a number of professionals to perform his jobs in a proper and systematic way. He has to interact with doctors, priests, casket makers and flower sellers, all with equal ease.

Finally, it is important for funeral directors to work beyond their normal schedule and offer comfort and solace to the suffering family of the deceased, in order to help them tide over their grief. Though it is a critical aspect of the job, some funeral directors tend to ignore it as a peripheral responsibility.

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