Now its ‘Rent-a-coffin’

No longer do you have to pay excessive amounts in funeral expenses. Rent a coffin is the new way to go, according to K Allen and Sons Funeral Directors Ltd on Broadway, Arima. Funeral director Marvin Allen explained the  procedure, “A customer comes in, chooses a coffin from the wide range on display at the Agency, then makes a downpayment of 25 percent of the price for the coffin plus the crematorium costs.” Cost of coffins at his establishment ranges from $2,500 to $75,000 and cremations cost $1,000. He said refrigeration charges were free, so there are no extra costs or overnight charges.

K Allen and Sons will be the first to introduce coffin rentals in Trinidad and Tobago at the grand opening of their new crematorium in Arima on December 4. Allen revealed the initiative came about due to its growing business internationally and regionally. “We have family businesses in New York, Miami and Grenada and they are getting great responses. We are related to Laqua’s in Grenada and they carry a hire-purchase service just like if you make a downpayment on a car and pay installments on a monthly basis. There you can make downpayments for the coffin and pay a monthly fee. That is something we are also considering for later on,” Allen told Sunday Newsday.

He said as a result of Hurricane Ivan which claimed many lives in Grenada, the rental service in Grenada, was in demand. The coffins now in stock at the funeral agency are imported from several countries including Canada, USA, Germany, Italy and Portugal. What is interesting, Allen revealed, is that after a customer pays a quarter of the cost for the rented coffin, the coffin is then destroyed. “We rent you the coffin for the (funeral) service, then we put the body in a special coffin for cremation. No one can reuse that (rented) coffin because of unsanitary purposes, so it is discarded. So that, if a customer comes in at the same time and requests the same type of coffin, we don’t sell him that coffin after you use it,” Allen said. The coffin is destroyed by burning.

He claimed that although a customer only pays a fraction of the cost for the rented coffin, it was not  a loss for his company. “It’s a business. It’s just like what obtains at certain stores where they advertise sales and drop the prices so you get the item at a reduced price,” he said. Similar to trends abroad, K Allen and Sons have also advertised their business via public displays, the most recent being at a Police Services display at the Hall of Justice where coffins were on show.