Nature of Operations Level 1 (Notes)

12 Months Ended

Dec. 31, 2014

Nature of Operations [Abstract]

Nature of Operations [Text Block]

Nature of Operations

We are North America’s largest provider of deathcare products and services, with a network of funeral service locations and cemeteries operating in the United States and Canada. Our funeral service and cemetery operations consist of funeral service locations, cemeteries, funeral service/cemetery combination locations, crematoria, and related businesses.

We provide all professional services relating to funerals and cremations, including the use of funeral facilities and motor vehicles and preparation and embalming services. Funeral-related merchandise, including caskets, casket memorialization products, burial vaults, cremation receptacles, cremation memorialization products, flowers, and other ancillary products and services, is sold at funeral service locations. Our cemeteries provide cemetery property interment rights, including developed lots, lawn crypts, mausoleum spaces, cremation niches, and cremation memorialization property and sell cemetery-related merchandise and services, including stone and bronze memorials, markers, merchandise installations, flowers, and burial openings and closings. We also sell preneed funeral and cemetery merchandise and services whereby a customer contractually agrees to the terms of certain merchandise and services to be provided in the future.