Budget funeral plans growing in popularity

RELATIVES are increasingly choosing no-frills cheaper funerals and seeking the best deal.

Demand for Dignity’s cheapest funeral service has risen from 7pc of all its funerals to 15pc since it lowered the cost from £2,700 to £1,991 in January to combat rivals.

However, chief executive Mike McCollum, 50, added: ‘More people have chosen the traditional, more expensive funeral than we expected and the overall average income per funeral is higher than we thought.’

Its cheapest funeral is about £2,000 less than the full-service option.

Yesterday, Dignity booked sales of £95m in the first quarter of the year, compared to £93m last year, with a profit of around £37.5m.

Deaths in the UK in the quarter are up 8pc to 181,000. Last year, the company conducted 68,800 funerals compared to 70,700 in 2016, or roughly 11.5pc of all deaths in Britain.