Have you paid for your funeral?

[clayspaniel]

Have you paid for your funeral in advance? Just wondering how people afford this so relatives aren't faced with paying for it e.g. funeral plan?

No I haven’t but it is such a kind thing to do for your loved ones.

I’ve had two deaths quite close to me this year and the one who hadn’t arranged a funeral or will was horrendous. Family arguing over how much to spend, whether to do burial or cremation, having to scratch together cash because no will or immediate savings.

We all took the piss when my granny organised hers and said it was morbid. Now I can see that it was her last act of love towards us all.

NO: I don't trust the funeral companies to still be around! Plus all these policies sold depend on others dying in the meantime to keep your plan going and fund yours
I do have savings in shared accounts with family that can also access the accounts,so that means sufficient funds for a funeral or two are available.
My friend has bought premium bonds for her kids with the instructions winnings are theirs but the basic ££K invested is towards her funeral.

I'm having a straight to cremation job, cheap enough not to have to plan.

I also forgot, years ago I got a life assurance that costs me £36/year and pays out a substantial more than funeral sum on my death, can't see funeral costs ever exceeding it .

They’re a good idea- but you need to be really careful.

My mum died suddenly last year and even though she had a funeral plan it didn’t really scratch the surface of the cost of a fairly standard service. It was heartbreaking as she thought she’d protected me from the worry of finding money for a funeral, but in reality she’d been paying £15 a month for years and there was still a shortfall of about £2,500.(I know £15 a month doesn’t seem that much, but mum died when she was 58, had she lived to say 80, she would have paid in way over the £1,750 they paid out).

I think there are some that do increase in value as the costs go up though.

I am currently paying mine off. Parents already paid theirs off.

Yes. I have a credit union account and one of the bonuses is that they provide a death benefit insurance that pays for your funeral. All I have to do is have a certain amount of savings with them. It’s nice peace of mind!

Some independent funeral directors will let people actually pay all the costs rather than paying for a plan but you run the risk of them ceasing trading. The better option is a dedicated bank account with approximately £5000 in it which your next of kin can access. That will pay for a coffin, cremation, church if desired and a modest knees up to follow at current prices

I think granny actually went to an independent funeral director and picked out everything and paid. We just had to ok what she had chosen.

I've left instructions that I don't want to have one. If any of my family are still alive when I die, and they want a funeral for me, they can pay for it themselves.

We have outlined money and instructions and we are only in our 30s. I don’t trust putting my money in a funeral company for many decades yet. At least I know people are not going to have to find money for it.

I used to sell Dignity funeral plans in a previous job. They are a good idea tbh and I’m surprised of people too scared to buy one. Saves a lot of hassle when you pass leaving your kids to pay for it. The Dignity funeral plan was in a government protected fund, so they had that protection.
I wish my mum would get one as she paid for df’s funeral. She says she has money in her savings for a funeral, but we’d have to wait to get access to it through probate and she knows what sort of funeral she wants.

I am in the process of now making a decision to sort out my, well,non funeral really. It's one of those firms,that take you away for a cremation,and then your ashes are then given to the family later..

It's what I call My neat and tidy ending,as I don't like funerals, especially burials. My son is ok with this idea, but my daughter is not. But it will save them a lot of hassle and expense.

You can,or maybe cannot,then have a party after,when you get the ashes back. Job done !

Do the insurance policies pay out that much more quickly than getting the money out of the estate? I had always assumed there would be loads of paperwork and in reality it wouldn't be any easier than just paying for it/sticking it on a credit card and then being reimbursed from the estate.

I was once the bank manager for a firm of undertakers. They were a successful firm, the go to firm locally.

The owner was very much a businessman, which I suppose you'd expect, but it was quite unsettling to hear him tell me proudly about all the tactics he used (guilt mostly) to make sure people spent more than they intended to/wanted to/could afford on the send off.

Therefore, my advice to anyone thinking about their own arrangements would be to make sure your loved ones know exactly what quality of coffin etc you want. If you want the horse drawn carriage fine, but don't let your DC be pressurised to give you the "best" possible send off, if that's not what you want.

No I don't. My mum had one. We paid for her funeral when we had to sell her house to cover care home fees.
It cost £2,600.
She died 2yrs ago,6 yrs after taking out the plan.Everything was covered, and so much easier to organise.
My dd died 2 yrs before my mum her funeral was £4,750 its so much harder making important decisions when you are upset and grieving.

Weve paid for direct cremation funerals i.e. no service or anything and it was still around £3k each! They will return ashes to family who can then hold a remembrance service if they wish and scatter ashes some where appropriate. Ive read that funeral costs are likely to escalate hugely over the next 20 years or so - dont know why though. If you take out a plan and pay into it monthly you are getting your funeral at todays costs and it is all seperate to the estate so pays out as soon as you need it.

There are differences between an over 50s insurance policy and an actual funeral plan. The policies may well not pay out as much you paid in depending on when you start etc so may not cover the cost of a funeral but an actual funeral plan such as Dignity will.

I used to sell both in a previous life and would always recommend Dignity rather than over 50 plan if the customer was looking to ultimately pay for their funeral. With the plans, there was 3 or 4 different options depending on your budget. We encouraged customers to discuss with their family so that they knew what was chosen when the time comes. I will be buying one as soon as I hit the lower age limit.

No, but having had to pay for DH's funeral I will make sure there are funds available for DS to pay for mine when the time comes. I had to use all of my bereavement lump sum plus dip into savings for DH. It was a lovely send off for the money and my parents settled up with the undertakers and I paid them back, so I didn't have to scrimp on anything.

I'm not having one, I plan on donating my organs and then straight to cremation. I hate funerals and it is my explicit wishes in my will that I don't want one.

I'm a bit uneasy with the idea of no funeral. I don't "want" one myself, what will I care? But really a funeral is for the bereaved, not the deceased. I think my mum would have found it very hard if her parents had decreed that there would be no funeral and I've seen lots of friends/colleagues who get some comfort/closure from the funeral.

What waxon said. Its in our wills and we've told our only DS so it's up to him if he wants to do a memorial service or nothing, we don't mind, we won't be here!

No but I have been looking in to them recently.

I'm in my 30's and feel like the longer I wait the higher the prices will be when I actually take out the plan, buying the plan earlier effectively halts the price to the price at the point of taking out the plan but it is very important to actually check the details covered in the plan as some don't cover all the costs and they will be charged separately examples may be doctors fee or actual cremation cost.

On the other hand it may be another 40+ years die so it's a long time to have the money tied up if the company goes bust or the laws around funerals change or even things like cremations and burials stop happening as there is another way found which would make the plan void or infact any other multiple things that could change in such a long time period.

No. Another of the many benefits of not having kids (or any younger relatives) is that you don't have to think about this sort of thing.