Posts Tagged ‘pre-planning’

Although it might sound preemptive and a bit macabre to plan your own funeral, this kind of advance arrangement is becoming more and more common. Not only does pre-planning a funeral allow you to have more control over what happens to your remains after you pass, but it can also save your family quite a bit of grief and money.

Planning your own funeral can be as simple as making a list of your wishes and ensuring your family knows where it is, or as complex as paying for everything in advance (even going so far as to purchase the casket or arrange every detail with the funeral home). There is no wrong way to go about it, but here are a few suggestions for getting started.

 Choose Your Final Interment Plan

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In the funeral pre-planning industry, there are several different options you can choose from for your future memorial service. You can plan down to the last detail by advance planning an entire funeral with the home of your choosing. You can set up a payment plan to lower funeral costs down the road. Or, if you’re like one of a growing number of consumers, you can purchase funeral insurance to ensure that your loved ones are taken care of.

What is Funeral Insurance?

At first glance, funeral insurance can be slightly misleading. Also known as burial insurance, final expense insurance, or pre-need insurance, these are insurance policies that an individual takes out to guarantee funeral funding. Like life insurance, it is payable out upon death and monies are granted to the beneficiary listed on the policy. Unlike life insurance, the payout tends to be smaller (enough just to cover the funeral) and are paid out faster (so that you can have the money for funeral planning). And in many cases, the only way the policy is different from a traditional life insurance option is in the beneficiary—in funeral insurance, you may choose to name the funeral home as the beneficiary, so that the money goes directly to them.

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Although it seems unthinkable to take advantage of a grieving family to make money, scams and fraud related to the death care industry can happen. As is the case in any field where emotions are high and decision-making is a strained business, unscrupulous vendors and outright scam artists may take advantage of the situation to earn a buck.

The majority of funeral homes operate in conjunction with national laws and regulations related to the funeral planning industry—and do it with compassion. However, if you find yourself feeling uncomfortable with any part of the process, be sure and step away from the funeral plans and check with this list of common funeral scams.

• Not Allowing You to See The Prices: Under the Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule, funeral homes must provide you with an itemized list of all their goods and services—including both packages and a la carte options. This list must be offered up front and without any other obligation on your part. In many cases, you can even request a copy over the phone or via mail, allowing you the chance to look it over at your leisure.

• Pressuring You to Decide Now: Like car dealerships, funeral homes have a better chance of getting results if they keep you on site until you’ve made all your decisions and put down a deposit on the funeral of your choosing. This exhausting process often leads to impulsive decisions and overspending. You have every right to take your time and ask to return at a later date.

• Forcing You to Buy from Them: There is no law that says you have to buy all your funeral items from the funeral home (in fact, the law says the exact opposite). You are allowed to shop around and order things like caskets, headstones, and funeral flowers from an outside provider—and the funeral home must accept them. (more…)

Advance funeral planning is becoming an increasingly popular choice for people who want to handle the burden of burial before death occurs. With so many different funeral pre-plan packages to choose from and the opportunity to relieve your loved ones of the costs and stress associated with burial, it’s no wonder why.

Because it is impossible to predict death, the only way to ensure that pre-planned funerals work is to bind everything in a legal contract or agreement. Every contract is a little bit different depending on where you go and what type of service you choose, but one thing that everyone should be aware of before signing on the dotted line is what the fine print says regarding cash advance items.

What is a Cash Advance Item?

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It’s no secret that planning a funeral is a mentally exhausting task. Most people charged with the task of burying a loved one are already reeling from an overflow of emotion, and when you add the need to make dozens of financial and burial decisions, the results can tear a person down.

According to recent studies about the process of making decisions, there might be some science behind the difficulties we face when planning a funeral (above and beyond mere loss). Decision fatigue, or the emotional toll that an abundance of decision making has on the human brain, can impact the way you think about your choices. And in many cases, the results will be vastly different than if you’d made that decision a few hours earlier (or later).

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Pre-need funeral plans are available through multiple avenues. You can find packages at most funeral homes, cemeteries, life insurance providers, large corporations, and even independent financial brokers. These days, just about everyone has a finger in the death pre-care industry pie, and knowing who to turn to for help can be tricky.

If you are in the market for a pre-arranged funeral, here are a few things you should know about shopping smart.

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If you’re getting ready to pre-plan your funeral, you’ll soon discover that there are many different kinds of providers and services out there. These days, you can choose from specialty businesses that only sell funeral pre-package plans, cemeteries and funeral homes, and insurance companies for all your pre-plan needs. To make matters even more complicated, the benefits themselves vary from insurance payouts upon death to entire funerals planned down to the last minute.

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If you’re reading this blog post, you already have some idea that the Internet can be a valuable funeral planning tool. Because of the wide availability of information online, and because more and more funeral homes are providing price lists and services via the Internet, you can accomplish everything from comparing prices to ordering caskets without leaving the comfort of your home.

However, as is the case with any purchase you make online, it’s important to do your research and make safe and secure choices. Here are a few tips when planning a funeral using the Internet.

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Some of the best (and lowest-cost) funeral planning efforts don’t involve buying or arranging anything. In fact, before you do any concrete planning, it’s a good idea to sit down and organize your fiscal and personal information so that everything you need is in one place. By taking an extra step to outline your funeral wishes and to provide a copy of this information to the individual who will be responsible for your estate after your death, you can save quite a bit of time and effort.

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Whenever you pre-plan a funeral or make arrangements to handle the remains of a loved one, you will be asked to sign a contract with the funeral home. This is designed to protect both you and the funeral home, which is why it’s important to make sure you understand the fine print before you sign (and why you might possibly run it by your lawyer first).

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