Thanexus licensed funeral home owners earned an average annual compensation of $128,903 in 2025, down slightly from the 2024 average of $133,596, according to a yearly report compiled by the nation’s first funeral practice management cooperative.

While owners annual compensation dipped, licensed non-owners saw a jump in their yearly salaries from $88,811 in 2024 to $90,102 in 2025, and newly licensed non-owners saw their average salaries rise significantly from $67,829 in 2024 to $75,913, an increase of almost 12 percent.

Clerical and administrative staff realized a jump in their average hourly wages from $24.42 in 2024 to $26.56 in 2025. Hourly wages for funeral attendants and interns also increased over the past year, according to the report.

New Jersey’s funeral service salaries remain higher than the national average, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. The national average salary of morticians, undertakers and funeral arrangers nationally stood at $59,420 per year in 2024, according to the BLS.

Thanexus gathers information that details average yearly compensation for employees of shareholders for whom Thanexus provides payroll and benefits services.

The cooperative uses actual W-2 wage data to calculate average and median salaries for several categories of employees, making it one of the most accurate barometers of funeral home employee compensation available.

In 2025, Thanexus shared employment with and administered benefits for the 792 employees of its 63 shareholders in 110 registered mortuaries across 94 worksites, for a combined annual payroll of $32 million. A total of 255 of those workers are licensed funeral directors.

The Thanexus retirement plan continues to post gains, according to the annual report. In 2025, the plan had total assets of $129.3 million, an increase of more than 5 percent from 2024. The average account balance for participants between the ages of 40 and 59 was $378,974 in 2025, an increase of more than 12 percent over 2024.

The average weighted expense ratio of the retirement plan is .275 percent, well below the national average, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Thanexus also declared $205,393 in patronage dividends in 2025, $154,045 of which will be returned to its shareholders is cash distributions with the remaining $51,348 allocated as member equity. In the past 25 years, Thanexus has declared more than $3.5 million in patronage dividends, and more than $2.17 million has been returned in cash distributions.

Those seeking more details concerning Thanexus can find the 2025 Thanexus State of the Industry report here.

Interested in learning more about the Thanexus advantage?

Contact Agency Manager Jonathan C. Krowicki, at 732.282.5117 for a confidential discussion about how Thanexus can help your funeral home with its benefit offerings and staff oversight.

In observance of Memorial Day, the office of the New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association will be closed on Monday, May 25, 2026.

We remember and honor those military personnel who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country.

The office will reopen at 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26, 2026.

Two days after Memorial Day 2026, the cremated remains of 10 World War II veterans will be interred at the Brigadier General William C. Doyle Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Arneytown.

The interment of these remains, discovered recently as part of the New Jersey Mission of Honor Program that finds abandoned veterans’ remains and provides them with dignified funeral services, is part of a dwindling tradition–military honors for the more than 16 million service men and women who were in uniform during the greatest conflict of the 20th century.

The National World War II Museum estimates that out of those 16.4 million, only about 45,000 are still living. Many are approaching 100, and veterans advocates believe the last of those Americans who fought in World War II will die within a decade. Already, most states have fewer than 1,000 living World War II veterans living in them, according to museum statistics. Alaska has no living veterans of the war, while California has the most with more than 5,000 living. New Jersey has just slightly more than 1,000 remaining.

While the need to honor these veterans is always present, especially around Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the push to memorialize those who served has taken on greater urgency. The museum and the Library of Congress have been gathering first-hand stories of the veterans’ service, while they can, a push that will continue as long as veterans live.

“Members of the generation that fought the war and prevailed will soon no longer be able to tell their own story,” Michael Bell, director of the museum’s Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, said in an article posted on the museum’s website. “It is our responsibility to preserve their memories and share their stories with the next generations.”

But the responsibility to honor their service goes beyond museums and libraries. It goes beyond the living veterans. Funeral homes play a role as well. From arranging military honors for eligible veterans to creating personalized tributes to the decedent, funeral homes can help make the history come alive, preserving the memory and lessons for future generations.

Photographs, memorabilia, even the decedent’s own words in an oral history, can give mourners a glimpse of a generation that is slipping away.

The help funeral directors provide can go beyond services after a veteran’s death. During preplanning, funeral professionals can also guide veterans and their families to the national museum, the Library of Congress and the Veterans Legacy Memorial, an online tribute to which families can contribute memories and pictures of a veteran’s service.

But arranging for military honors for eligible veterans will always be a visceral reminder of the sacrifice made and the recognition due for those who served. As the World War II generation slips away, the folded flag, the military guard and the playing of “Taps” provide us all with an opportunity to remember, ensuring that the cost of war and the contributions of those we love and admire are not forgotten.

A consumer advocacy organization has alerted the federal Bureau of Consumer Protection to what it says are an online cremation service’s repeated violations of court orders mandating that the company cease deceptive practices.

Truth in Advertising, known as TINA, claims in a May 11, 2026 letter that Legacy Cremation Services, which has done business under several different aliases is a “brazen serial offender” of several rulings, including a 2023 federal court order, that enjoined Legacy from “misrepresenting or assisting others in misrepresenting” the location and scope of business operations, the location or identity of any other business that provides services to consumers and the cost and fees associated with services provided.

Key Takeaways

• TINA alleges Legacy Cremation Services repeatedly violated court orders prohibiting deceptive cremation advertising practices
• Legacy allegedly misrepresented local operations, inflated prices, and withheld remains until consumers paid additional fees
• Funeral associations and regulators warned about Legacy for years, but alleged abuses continue nationwide

Legacy has also been known by names such as Heritage Cremation Provider, Evergreen Funeral Home and Crematory, and Carolina Central Crematory, among others. The company was accused by the federal government and several state governments of misrepresenting itself as a local provider of cremation services when, in reality, it was contracting with cremation providers, which Truth in Advertising says is continuing. Often, the courts ruled, Legacy practiced “bait and switch” tactics in which consumers were quoted one price for services and then charged significantly more.

“Legacy is exploiting particularly susceptible consumers who must make time-sensitive decisions at a moment of profound grief and emotional vulnerability,” TINA.org Executive Director Bonnie Patten said in a press release. “This behavior is shameful, harms consumers and must be stopped.”

TINA said it had “identified more than 60,000 web pages” that violated the 2023 federal court order, providing examples in which the company called itself the “Most Trusted Cremation Service” in various locales, including Hull, MA, New York, Kansas, Puerto Rico and American Samoa. In small print on some, but not all, of its web pages, Legacy discloses that it is a “Colorado licensed funeral home” that “does not perform cremation services itself” and instead partners with local funeral homes.

“Indeed, based on Legacy’s current deceptive advertising practices, it appears that neither the order nor the various enforcement actions filed against it by more than a dozen states, have had any material impact on the way Legacy advertises its services,” the TINA letter argues.

Legacy has had a fraught history for years. In a 2022 lawsuit, the Federal Trade Commission outlined a sophisticated operation in which Legacy or its aliases manipulated internet search engines to make sure advertisements for its services appeared at the top of searches and would “prominently display the name of the city or town for which the consumer searched,” a practice which sometimes fooled consumers into believing they were dealing with a local funeral home.

Despite its claim to provide cremations at extremely low costs, the company quoted prices that were not always honored, and consumers were sometimes given an ultimatum: pay the bill or the cremated remains would not be returned.

“Some consumers pay the higher prices because they know of no other option to recover the remains,” the suit stated.

The New Jersey State Funeral Directors Association first alerted its members and the State Board of Mortuary Science of New Jersey concerning Legacy after the company had its registration suspended in Colorado in June 2017. The NJSFDA urged members to conduct due diligence before taking any trade work on behalf of any company or funeral home that is not explicitly coming from the legal next of kin.

The National Funeral Directors Association then issued an alert to its members in August 2017 concerning Legacy, warning funeral directors of Legacy’s practices.

But despite the repeated warnings, various court orders and fines, Legacy continues to inflate costs and misrepresent itself, leading to ongoing consumer harm, TINA argued. The advocacy group included several first-hand stories from those who dealt with Legacy, including tales of lost bodies, mishandled arrangements, cremated remains held hostage and hidden costs.

“Absolute vultures,” one consumer told TINA.

A slideshow takes a look at 14 unique burial sites around the world. The military funeral honors team for the U.S. Army practices regularly to make sure honors are performed smoothly. And a Virginia cemetery has been added to the National Register of Historic Places. These stories and more are in the week in funeral news.

NEWS

Fourteen Forgotten Burial Sites with Unusual Stories
By Daisy Montero
History isn’t just written in books; it’s etched into the very ground we walk upon. While famous cemeteries like Père Lachaise draw millions of tourists, there are countless burial grounds hidden in plain sight that hold far more peculiar tales. This slideshow uncovers 14 forgotten sites, each with a narrative that defies the ordinary. View slideshow here.

Virginia Cemetery Added to National Register of Historic Places
By Taylor Bryan (WWBT)
Woodland Cemetery in Richmond, VA, has earned a place on the National Register of Historic Places. Founded in 1917 to give Black people in the city a place to be buried with dignity, many of the people laid to rest played a major role in events across Virginia and the country. Read more here.

The Changing Face of Funerals
By Sandy Hausman (Radio IQ)
Ana Aegi Ortiz-Clothiaux went through years of treatment for breast cancer, giving her time to think about the end of life. One thing weighed on her mind. Where would her body go after death? Read more here.

A Final Honor: Inside the Fort Meade Military Funeral Honors Mission
By Abigail Carey (U.S. Army)
There is no room for error in military funeral honors. There are no second takes; every movement is a result of hours of deliberate practice. At Fort Meade in Maryland, the Military Funeral Honors team treats every ceremony as the most important mission of the day, ensuring that every veteran receives the dignity and respect they earned. Read more here.

California Family Seeks Answers After Their Loved One Was Cremated Without Their Knowledge
By Pete Suratos (NBC Bay Area)
A Walnut Creek, CA, family is demanding answers after they said their loved one was cremated without notifying them first. The family said they had one simple request: To be notified before the cremation, so they could say one final goodbye. Now they say that moment was taken away from them. Read more here.

OPINION

Am I Allowed to Enjoy Funerals?
By Kate Morris (The Spectator)
Before I had ever been to a funeral, I imagined what it would be like: a grim, depressing affair. The sky would be leaden and there would be rain. There would be deeply sorrowful music – Adagio in G minor by Albinoni, a verbose elegy, stiff hymns, muffled sobbing, regulatory prayers and afterwards egg sandwiches, polite chatter and weak cups of tea. But this version of a funeral has changed in recent years and has become more relaxed and celebratory, perhaps in line with declining church attendance. Read more here.

Families in Oklahoma may soon be able to choose natural organic reduction as a method of treatment for a decedent if a recently passed bill gets signed by Governor Kevin Stitt.

The bill, House Bill 3660, received final legislative approval when it was passed by the Oklahoma House of Representatives by a vote of 58-35 on May 6, 2026. The measure was passed by the Senate 28-18 on May 5, 2026.

The bill would legalize the national organic reduction process and empower the Oklahoma Funeral Board to set the parameters for its use in the state.

Natural organic reduction is the process of controlled supervised decomposition of a human body resulting in the conversion of human remains into a soil-like product. New Jersey legalized the process in 2025, and it is scheduled to become available to consumers in July 2026.

The measure in Oklahoma, however, was faced with particularly contentious opposition, with one state representative calling the bill “shocking and revolting,” according to an April 2026 KFOR article.

“Human bodies are not commodities to be used and turned into compost, which is a type of fertilizer,” KFOR reported Representative Jim Shaw as saying. “The potential abuse and future ramifications of this practice is staggering.”

But one of the authors of the bill, Representative Eddy Dempsey, said the measure was about compassion and consumer choice.

"Families deserve the freedom to choose how they honor and lay their loved ones to rest without unnecessary government interference,” Dempsey said in a press release. “At the same time, this legislation puts clear standards in place so these services are handled safely, professionally and with the respect every family deserves.”

Another representative said that those opposed to the bill were peddling “a lot of lies” by calling the product of NOR human manure.

“There's two things that the government should stay out of: it's coming into this world and leaving this world,” Representative Jonathan Wilk said.