Krause Funeral Homes & Cremation Service

"At Krause Funeral Homes, our goal is to be the very best funeral home. It is most disturbing when Krause Funeral Home falls short of our families’ high expectations. We rarely receive a complaint about our performance, but when we do, I take the highest priority to correct the problem and see that the situation does not occur again. Funerals are special moments that need care and expertise. Anything less is not acceptable. How a family feels about their funeral experience does matter to Krause Funeral Home and the Krause Family. It is unfortunate that often we have to deal with difficult laws, rules regulations or the realities of our government and legal system. From time to time, the consumer families, we have the honor to represent, suffer from the results of the obstacles that we, as a business must maneuver around to provide. One such instance is the situation when it is presumed that there are no next of kin to authorize a cremation. Prior to 2011, when an individual desired cremation, after death, the cremation could only take place if the legal next of kin would authorize it to happen. It is true that it is not a law that the legal next of kin has to authorize the cremation but in this current legal system, many funeral homes have been sued because a long lost relative has “come out of the woodwork”. Individuals have claimed mental anguish and have received monetary damages for the funeral home trying to do what the deceased desired, by cremating. This has not been an issue with burial because the body is still intact…cremation is irreversible. Fortunately in 2011, at the urging of Krause Funeral Homes and the Funeral Service & Cremation Alliance of Wisconsin, a new law was passed. Authorizing Agent Bill was a major consumer change that allowed individuals to select someone to be their Authorizing Agent and have all of the decision-making abilities regarding the funeral. This authorizing agent will supersede all other relatives. Since the passing of this law, we inform all our families about this law and have them sign something acknowledging their understanding that this law could alleviate future issues. Many of the people have made the changes to their plans but others chose not to do anything. Unfortunately, we still find that many attorneys and estate planners are still unaware of the law. With this case, our attorney sought a judgment buy the courts to allow us to complete the cremation without us being liable to legal action by some unknown relative."