Insurer Sunlife’s 2024 Cost of Dying report shows a return to the long-term rise in funeral costs, with the average price of a basic funeral increasing to £4,141 in 2023.
Their annual report, first published in 2004, has tracked a 126% increase in average funeral costs over the last 20 years. However, even these prices can’t compare with the cost of some of the world’s most expensive funerals.
Funerals from history
The most expensive funeral in history is said to be that of Alexander the Great. Taking two years to plan, the King’s body was preserved in honey while the golden casket and funeral carriage that would carry his body from Babylon to Macedonia were built. Estimates put the cost of his funeral and the extravagant ceremonials at about £420 million.
The Egyptian King Khufu ordered the Great Pyramid of Giza to be built as a tomb for himself and his Queen, Henutsen. We can’t know what it cost to build the pyramid or how much the funeral ceremonies that marked the couple’s funerals cost. Whatever the cost, the extravagant memorial has lasted more than 4,500 years.
Royal funerals
Following an unprecedented 70-year reign, Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022. The Queen’s state funeral was held in Westminster Abbey and is the UK’s most expensive royal funeral, costing over £160 million. Mourners included the UK’s Prime Minister Liz Truss with several of her predecessors, as well as the US President and senior politicians from all over the world. More than 4 billion people are said to have watched the funeral, with over a million paying their respects in person.
Before the Queen’s death, the funeral of Princess Diana was one of the most memorable Royal funerals. The funeral of the ‘People’s Princess’ in 1997 was watched by an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide. The funeral service cost about £9.5 million at current prices and closely followed the plan that was in place for the Queen Mother's funeral.
Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, survived Princess Diana by five years, dying in 2002 at the age of 101. Her state funeral is reported to have cost just under £10 million, adjusted for inflation. An estimated 200,000 people paid their respects, filing past her coffin in Westminster Hall at the Palace of Westminster where she lay in state.
Politician's funerals
The funeral of Winston Churchill was planned for almost a decade before he died in 1965. The wartime Prime Minister's state funeral involved a procession to St Paul's cathedral where the Queen was in attendance. At the time, the funeral cost about £220,000 but adjusted for inflation that would be equivalent to almost £3 million today.
Margaret Thatcher died in 2013 and although it was not officially a state funeral, Britain’s first female Prime Minister’s funeral was held at St Paul’s Cathedral. There were 2,000 mourners in attendance and the ceremony cost £3.6 million. The Thatcher family paid for transport, flowers and cremation, but the cost of police and security was covered by the UK Government.
In 1963, John F Kennedy’s state funeral cost over £12 million. Hundreds of thousands of people queued to view his casket at the Capitol building in Washington DC after his body was returned from Dallas where he was assassinated. Representatives of over 90 countries attended JFK’s funeral.
Ronald Reagan’s 2004 state funeral is estimated to have cost a staggering £620 million. This sounds incredible compared to the cost of funerals for other political leaders, however, Regan’s funeral was the first major public event held in the US after 2001’s September 11th attacks and almost half of the cost was for security, closure of the stock exchange and the wages of federal workers who were given the day off for the funeral.
