How One Company Is Breathing New Life Into the Death Industry

When Scott Ginsberg was 17, his father abruptly acquired several hundred funeral caskets. That was especially odd, because at the time, Larry Ginsberg was not in the funeral business. He’d made a loan to a mortuary that couldn’t make the payments, and in the foreclosure, he wound up with a great deal of “merchandise” he had no clue how to get rid of. 

It became something of a family joke, the younger Ginsberg says. But it was — as the kids would say — a “canon event” — one that would shape most of his working life. His father’s unusual predicament gave him a rare view into a siloed industry: Almost all caskets in the U.S. are still sold through funeral homes, which invariably mark them up between 200 and 400% percent above the wholesale price. But in the ‘80s, the Federal Trade Commission enacted the “funeral rule,” which among other things, gave consumers the right to buy coffins or urns from wherever they choose. That was good news for the Ginsberg family.

In 1988, in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the new rule allowed Larry to sell off his “garage full of caskets” to the public, by listing them in local newspapers. But it also gave his son an idea: If he could find a way to capitalize on this new rule by selling directly to customers at scale, Ginsberg figured he’d be able to save grieving families thousands of dollars. 

“It’s always been in the back of my mind — that law, and how you can capitalize on it,” he tells us. 

But it would take decades before he landed on a direct-to-consumer model that worked. For 20 years, he ran his own casket manufacturing and distributing business, until starting Titan Casket in 2016. The company exclusively sells its caskets online, and just as Ginsberg envisioned, their products cost a lot less than the industry standard.

“The average price at a funeral home is over $3,000,” Ginsberg says. “Ours is $1,400.”

When you listen to Ginsberg and his co-founder Joshua Siegel talk about Titan and the simple math that allows them to sell their products for so much cheaper, the first thing that springs to mind is: “What took so long?” In a world where you can buy a queen-size mattress or an above-ground pool online with a click of a button, you’d think a web-based casket business would have emerged a long time ago. 

But the casket market, as Ginsberg will tell you, is a hard one to break into. For starters, the sector is dominated by two manufacturers, which Ginsberg says control about 85 percent of production and only sell to licensed funeral homes. Then there’s the fact that moving something so large across the country, and ensuring that it arrives on time and all in one piece, is a “logistics nightmare,” Ginsberg says. “It’s not like a piece of furniture that can be a day or two late. We have to get it right the first time.” This is where Siegel comes in. He spent 10 years with Amazon overseeing the delivery of other heavy, bulky items and brought that expertise to Titan. 

There’s also the emotional aspect to consider, Ginsberg says. The very act of buying a casket is, for many, a uniquely stressful experience, and most fall back on what’s familiar. So they rely on a funeral director to guide them through everything from the embalming process to casket selection. 

Ginsberg recognizes that “we’re asking families to take a leap of faith,” by shopping online. But it could be a saving grace, especially now that the average funeral costs between $8,000 to $10,000. Plus, with Titan, you aren’t limited to just a few different options, as you would be at a funeral home. The company literally offers a thousand different models, from a line of eco-friendly bamboo coffins to a “see-through” casket made of a clear acrylic.

And since everyone wants a personalized/customized product these days, Titan has consumers covered. They’ve painted one casket for a deeply committed University of Tennessee Vols fan in a bright orange, with the school’s logo. They made another with a special lining in a duck hunter camouflage. “If you want a unique way to honor your loved one, those other funeral homes can’t do that,” Ginsberg says. (Die-hard Taylor Swift fans may opt for the Orion copper series, which was recently featured in the pop star’s “Anti-Hero” music video.)

Updating the Funeral Rule

There are still a surprising number of people who don’t realize that buying a casket outside the funeral home route is even an option, even though the funeral rule has been in effect since 1984. 

“We see families every day who’ve been told that they have to buy a package that includes a casket,” Siegel says. 

That’s why recently, there’s been a push to strengthen the FTC regulation by requiring that undertakers list their prices online. (Only about a quarter of funeral homes offer a full price list on their websites, while most provide “little to no” pricing info, according to the FTC.) Currently, they’re only mandated to provide written prices to clients who visit in-person, or to those who ask over the phone. But the co-founders of Titan want the FTC to go one step further. In October, they gave a presentation to the agency about why mortuaries should be ordered to inform customers about their rights, and why there needs to be more enforcement to keep funeral homes on the up and up. 

“We know from experience that [buying a casket direct] helps thousands of families a year,” Siegel says. “There’s the ones that buy from us, but then there’s the tens of thousands more who are able to negotiate better prices because of this rule.”

He’s not sure if the FTC will clarify the rule anytime soon, but Ginsberg is prepared to play the long game; after all, he’s been thinking about death and its accoutrements for most of his life. That may sound grim to some, but that’s not how Ginsberg sees it.

“We have an opportunity to help someone during what could be the worst period of their lives,” he says. “To be there for them — and ultimately help them not turn an emotional loss into a financial loss, too.”