{"id":205738,"date":"2025-06-22T18:28:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T18:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205738\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T18:28:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T18:28:13","slug":"london-funerals-cost-more-than-anywhere-else-in-the-uk-report-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/205738\/","title":{"rendered":"London funerals cost more than anywhere else in the UK, report finds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Attended funerals<\/a> in London<\/a> cost more on average than anywhere else in the UK, a report has found.<\/p>\n

Financial services company SunLife <\/a>has found that a funeral in London costs 27% more than the average for the UK, which was \u00a34,285 in 2024.<\/p>\n

In London, however, it was \u00a35,449 \u2014 a 5.4% increase from the year before and 58% higher than in the least expensive region, Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

According to the firm\u2019s Cost of Dying report, seven out of 10 regions in the UK have found funeral costs rise in the last year.<\/p>\n

Concerns have been raised about funeral poverty<\/a>, with charity Quaker Social Action saying it can \u201crob people of their ability to grieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lindsay Mace, who leads on work to tackle funeral poverty, told the BBC<\/a>: “We hear so often from people that they don’t have the mental space to grieve because all they can do is think about how they’re going to pay the costs.<\/p>\n

“Faced with these costs that they can’t afford people sometimes use their rent money to pay a funeral deposit or they will cut back on food or not pay essential bills just trying to scrape that money together.”<\/p>\n

Families and individuals on certain government benefits are entitled to a subsidy \u2014 a Funeral Expenses Payment to help cover some of the costs.<\/p>\n

However, of those who receive a Funeral Expenses Payment, the subsidy covers approximately 46% of the total funeral costs, on average, the SunLife report found.<\/p>\n

The report found 18% of families experience notable financial concerns when paying for a funeral. On average, they have to find almost \u00a32,371 to cover the costs.<\/p>\n

Most of them find the money by delving into their savings and investments (33%), using a credit card (24%), or borrowing from a friend or relative (23%). The number of people selling belongings to cover the cost has risen again, now at 19%.<\/p>\n

Jordan Flynn, from SunLife, said the capital had the fewest people making provision for their own funerals, but the highest number of funeral organisers citing financial concern.<\/p>\n

Mr Flynn advised getting quotes from a few different funeral directors and seeking advice on how to bring costs down.<\/p>\n

A Department for Work and Pensions<\/a> (DWP) spokesperson said: “Losing a loved one is devastating and we understand the financial impacts it can have on families.<\/p>\n

“The DWP Funeral Expenses Payment scheme makes a contribution towards the cost of a funeral arranged by someone who is in receipt of certain income-related benefits. It also offers an additional \u00a31,000 to meet other funeral expenses.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Attended funerals in London cost more on average than anywhere else in the UK, a report has found.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,82844,4884,257,82843,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-205738","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-funeral-expenses","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-london","13":"tag-sunlife","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114728436407995595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}