Rush to beat HST prompts ‘frenzy’ of prepaid funerals

Richard Blackwell CTV News:

People in Ontario and British Columbia rushed to prepay their funerals last spring – not because they expect to die soon, but to beat the added cost of the new HST. Consumers in those two provinces had until the end of June to avoid the harmonized sales tax – before that, only the GST applied to prepaid funerals. On a $10,000 funeral, the new HST adds about $800 in Ontario and $700 in B.C. Many funeral homes launched marketing campaigns early this year to let their potential customers know of the deadline, and they appear to have been a huge success. “There was a frenzy,” said Harry Renaud, executive director of Guaranteed Funeral Deposits of Canada, a not-for-profit organization that helps 350 Ontario funeral homes manage the money they glean from prepayments. He said his organization usually receives about $3-million from its members to invest in a normal month, but in June the number reached roughly $58-million, almost 20 times the usual amount. “It started in April, it grew bigger in May, and then the blitz hit in June,” Mr. Renaud said. “We were totally overwhelmed.” GFD helped produce advertising materials for its funeral home members in advance of the HST changeover, and aggressive marketing appears to have helped drive the gains, Mr. Renaud said.