A draft law which will reduce the cost of funerals, break the monopoly of the large insurance companies and protect vulnerable bereaved families from exploitation is currently going through the Spanish parliamentary system.
The law also aims to remove some obsolete requirements which cause distress, extra expense and fulfill no useful purpose. These include the necessity to wait for 24 hours before a burial and the requirement that the body is transferred by a funeral director authorized the municipal area where the person died or where the burial will take place.
One of the most important changes will be that insurance companies will be required to provide a free “estimate” for the cost of the funeral and will be obliged to offer the services of other funeral directors. This breaks the monopoly of the large insurance companies who work with only one funeral company. Hospitals may also be required to offer a list of funeral directors and consumer groups are asking that financial sanctions be imposed on companies breaking the new law. Currently Ocaso, Santa Lucia and Mapfre have a 60% share of the sector.
In a bid to reduce the cost of funerals, which is a 1,000 million euro industry in Spain, funeral companies will no longer be obliged to have a minimum number of cars or personnel and will not be required to have a chapel of rest. This is aimed at opening the sector up to smaller companies offering a cheaper service. Funeral directors will also be released from the current requirement for an “authorization of access” which involves considerable paperwork and expense in taxes. It will be replaced by a “responsible declaration:” a document of agreement to comply with the new law.
The Government defines the current system as “obsolete” and underlines that ignorance about the sector and the vulnerability of the families who take decisions under pressure and without sufficient information make the new law “very necessary.”
