If you take the train from Johannesburg to Cape Town, about halfway between the two, it sails silently through a village whose cemetery is larger than the village itself. It’s an eerie sight, and it’s one that is likely to become more widespread as the impact of HIV/Aids in the country kicks in.
According to the head of the Metropolitan Life Aids Research Unit in South Africa, Steve Kraimer, 20% of the economically active 16 to 59 age group are HIV-positive. The economy is bracing itself for an estimated five million people dead by the year 2005.
But as economists predict the onset of a national emergency, one industry is looking into the future and rubbing its hands with glee: the funeral industry.
“People don’t want to talk about death,” says Albert Kruger, branch manager of Doves funeral parlour in Braamfontein, as he opens the door into the coffin showroom. The first coffin to enter the line of vision is the piece de resistance: a steel casket. Guaranteed to last, it has been spray painted metallic blue and lined with padded, white silk. The lid is propped up and at the head is a big, squashy pillow. It looks extremely comfortable – and if it were a choice between a snooze in there and 12 hours in a seat in economy class, there would be no competition.
The rest of the showroom displays the traditional, sexagonal wooden coffins. Their lids are closed and they are stacked, four-a-piece, on racks going up the wall. They look like coffins should – cold and uninviting – unlike the flashy sportscar of a steel casket.
The funeral industry is a guaranteed growth industry. The world population is rising and everyone’s a customer. The price of a funeral can go from R7 500 to R50 000 if the body is embalmed and laid to rest in a vault. In the Johannesburg area alone Doves does about 40 to 70 funerals a month.
“People come in here and are sometimes heartbroken because they can’t give their loved ones what they want,” says Doves’s public relations officer, Johan Steyns. “They must have financial back-up.”
Over and above the funeral parlour’s charges, a grave plot must be paid for. Grade “A” cemeteries cost around R1 200 a plot and have a well-equipped office on-site and maybe some maintenance. Grade “C” cemeteries have no office facilities and a plot will cost about R400. For a truly beautiful setting and electrified security fences, people can expect to pay from R2 500 to R16 000 for a family plot at a privately run cemetery. Security ensures against the theft of headstones and worse, coffins: there’s a good sell-on market. Crematorium fees, doctor’s fees, catering costs and donations for the minister and organist are all extra. Dying doesn’t come cheap.
“People should take out a policy and then they know they will not be a financial burden on their family,” says Steyns. For himself, he wants something elaborate: “I want a solid imbuia coffin, white roses and a plot at the private cemetery, Fourways. I’ve deserved it. I deserve a nice funeral. I’ve taken out an extra policy so I won’t be an extra burden.”
The financial burden of a funeral can be a problem for the family of the dead. The funeral home witnesses a lot of family rows. One of the customers spots the blue steel, last-forever casket and is convinced that their dad, or whoever, is going to love it. But someone else thinks Dad would have preferred something plain and functional – and perhaps a little cheaper.
When Kruger first started work at Doves, he went to do a body removal from a house. The old man, now dead, had insisted as his final wish that he not be carried out of the house until an entire bottle of whisky had been drunk by his family. The old man had a policy, fully paid up, for an elaborate funeral.
But the family could really have used the money and it was a dilemma. Did he really need an expensive funeral? Half the family thought they could cash the policy in and give him a cheap send-off. Not everyone was convinced and an alcohol-fuelled squabble broke out.
“We end up doing a lot of mediation. Especially if there is no planning. That’s why we want to get people talking about death and planning for it,” says Steyns and, looking me straight in the eye, continues: “A lot more young people are dying now, you know.”
So I ask. How much for me? He dashes off to get his chart and returns with a quote. Twenty-six, female, unmarried – they could give me a R10 000 policy for R49,10 a month, over 15 years. That would ensure a good do – and if I didn’t last the 15 years, I would have myself a good deal.
People as young as 20 are known to buy funeral policies. They might even pay up to 10% of their monthly income into a fund. For those selling the policies it’s good to get people young because there is a greater chance that they will last the full term and not cost the insurance company money.
Anyone can start up a funeral fund and get people to pay into it. But after a couple of funerals the company realises it can’t make money because too many people are dying. It closes down, taking people’s money with it.
But death rates for the young are on the rise and the insurers have to minimise their risk. Premiums are rising rapidly and companies are putting measures in place to cover themselves. If a policyholder misses his payment date by just a day, some policies will become invalid and there is a waiting period to rejoin.
Steyns says Doves wants to give something back to the community. The company wants to get involved in old age homes. Over Easter he visited all the old people’s homes in his catchment area and handed out free Easter eggs. He has even, he proudly shares, organised trips out to a show. The inmates get dressed up, Steyns gives everyone a free carnation for their buttonhole, he loads them on to a bus and ferries them off to the theatre. Afterwards they go for hamburgers: “It made me feel good. I mean, when do old people get hamburgers? Some people forget about them but we do care.”
Doves has a policy tailored for those in homes. Policyholders will pay R29 a month for the rest of their lives and although they won’t be insured for a full funeral, they will get their coffin and body removal paid for.
Steyns has a message that he wants to get out to people about the company: “We’re one big, happy family. And I want people to know, we are not an enemy, we are a friend. Come in, have a cup of tea, chat, introduce yourself. And maybe you have an ancient policy; we can help you to get something better.”
Funeral parlours have been accused of being exploitative, insidious and greedy.
“Funerals are viewed as an expression of love. People pay for them because of the emotion,” says Hester Sinclair, a former funeral parlour owner and now co-founder of MJM Consultants, a coffin-making school in Randfontein.
“There are people out there who will profit from trauma. The family is upset and even if they go in thinking they want the cheapest funeral, they come out with something more expensive.”
Funeral parlours have a “body in, coffin out” policy. If they pick up a body and store it in their cooler the family is strongly encouraged to do the funeral with that parlour. If they don’t agree to it the parlour will charge a highly inflated storage and removal fee.
This practice is perfectly legal and exploitable. Doves points out, with outrage, that new funeral parlours venturing to get their businesses off the ground wait outside the mortua-ries with freezer vans. They either buy bodies from the over-stretched mortuaries that are desperate to get rid of them, or they lie in wait for families who are identifying bodies and harangue them into doing business.
Chasing business in such a way is completely tasteless. New customers don’t get so much as a chocolate egg or a buttonhole carnation, let alone a trip out to a show and something nice for the family. Certainly, no one gets a cup of tea or a sympathetic pat on the arm before they pay through the nose.
An organising clerk at a well-known funeral parlour was asked by a family to pick up a body from a hospital. When he got there, he was refused access. The family arrived and also asked the hospital to release the body. They too were refused. After two hours another funeral parlour arrived and successfully claimed the body. They had paid for it, the clerk claims.
He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his life. He said that colleagues who had crossed the owners of these new businesses had had their cars set alight. He accuses Mafia-style groups of infiltrating the chains of established funeral parlours and setting up intimidation rings.
Funeral parlours have a good relationship with mortuaries and some mortuaries will send a body direct to a funeral parlour without consulting the family. Once at the parlour the body won’t be released because of the “coffin out” policy. Funeral parlours also employ runners to hang around hospitals and let the parlour know when someone has died. If the parlour gets a sale from it, the runner gets a cut.
This is an “underground business”, says the unnamed clerk, and the established funeral parlours don’t know exactly who these people are.
“It’s like dogs hunting a bone, and it’s crippling us,” the clerk says. “I’ve seen bodies being mishandled. These people will drag bodies by the feet and drop them onto the floor.”
Peggy, a domestic worker, went to pick up her aunt from one such funeral parlour. They had run out of cooler space, and she was sent in to view her aunt as she lay on the floor, uncovered and dripping. When she complained, their response was matter-of-fact. The body had already been chilled for a while, new bodies had come in needing refrigeration, and so the old ones were removed.
According to the clerk, new parlours run intimidation rings in the townships. If a family won’t agree to a burial with them, the parlour will threaten to burn their house down.
Funeral parlours have been accused of recycling coffins. One man, who didn’t want to be named, said that he ordered a specially customised coffin after his fiancÃ