To really really hate these funeral plan adverts?!

[sharkirasharkira]

They are just fucking everywhere at the moment and they drive me absolutely mad. They're also getting really guilt-trippy and almost emotionally manipulative!

You know the ones -

Older couple/couple of friends, discussing their dearly departed's recent beautiful funeral and commenting that they couldn't POSSIBLY afford anything THAT nice!!

Or alternatively saying that X passed away recently and HER POOR FAMILY they had to cough up MANY THOUSANDS for a funeral!!

Translation -

That selfish person had the temerity to die and not leave thousands behind specifically to pay for their funeral. They've put their loved ones in SO MUCH DEBT!! How AWFUL of them!

Cue the ad for pre-paid funeral plans, etc etc.

Just winds me up that they are pushing SO hard to get us to feel so guilty. I have enough guilt in my life, thanks. I don't need any more from bloody adverts!

I don't want a funeral, at all. I would much rather my loved ones spend their money living life, seeing the world, having fun, or putting it towards their futures rather than wasting it on buying me a very expensive box for my remains to live in.

If you want to have one of these plans, or pay thousands for a funeral then that is absolutely your choice. No issue with that. I just don't want it shoved down my throat every time I turn on the TV! Aibu?

So OP how would you find the money to dispose of the body?

Sorry I was talking about what used to be called paupers funerals where there are no relatives and no money. I did attend one where a client had died, I worked for the local authority and it was done simply but respectfully. I would reiterate that you don't need to employ a funeral director , and can DIY. I think if more did then things might change.

Never assume you can definitely donate your body!

www.everplans.com/articles/11-myths-about-whole-body-donation

Myth 5: Once all paperwork is completed, a donor is automatically accepted

"Fact: Even donors who seem like excellent candidates at the time of a whole body donation program’s pre-screening may not be eligible upon death. For example, if the donor passes and isn’t transported and placed into refrigeration in a timely manner, or if the death involved severe trauma to multiple bones. Furthermore, even after the point of acceptance, donors are occasionally declined. For example, inclement weather or unavoidable delays may prevent transportation or the next of kin may become unreachable. Many smaller donation programs and university programs may decline a donor due to lack of storage space and need."

You don't need to have an expensive funeral, OP. I am not planning an expensive funeral. It still has to be paid for though.

I think most people wouldn’t know where on earth to start with a DIY. I wouldn’t. And when someone you love has just died, a lot of people aren’t really in much of a fit state to start learning and reading around to do it DIY! We had a funeral director and it was worth every penny to be able to just hand the whole thing off to them, they organised everything from moving the body from hospital to the funeral home, all we had to do other than choose what we wanted was Show up on the day and ‘enjoy’ it.

I don’t think many people even know you can do it DIY!

OP, it would be a good idea to write down your funeral of choice and keep it with your will. This will ensure you get what you want. I have found that telling people doesn't always work, as relatives always think they know better. I have been party to some bitter funeral arguments about what so and so may or may not have liked or requested.
You are lucky if you have found a woodland burial for £400. I wanted to inter some ashes at a woodland site until I found the cost, which was near on 1k, and you only had ownership of the plot for 25 years.
I am not having a proper funeral but even just simply having my body cremated will still cost quite a bit. (The money saved is to be spent on a slap up meal for those that are left!)

Of course funerals cost money, but these adverts are misleading. They always show middle class people with conservatories etc ie the kind of people who will have plenty of savings and whose estate upon death will more than cover the cost of a funeral.

These are not the people the adverts are aimed at, particularly given that the plans are a very poor deal, financially - the people who take out these plans have no other assets or savings and no way to build them up, so they'll pay through the nose so that their families won't get into debt upon their death. Unfortunately even that isn't guaranteed - the affordable plans only pay out a little over £1k which will barely touch the sides of what a funeral costs.

They're the elderly equivalent of payday loans.

I don't want a funeral, at all. I would much rather my loved ones spend their money living life, seeing the world, having fun, or putting it towards their futures rather than wasting it on buying me a very expensive box for my remains to live in

But surely this is the point of the plans advertised? I don't have any preferences at all for when I die - use what you can, then chuck the rest in the garbage disposal if that suits! But there are still costs involved - as pp have said you're looking at an absolute minimum of hundreds for a plot and DIY burial, or over a thousand for the most basic cremation. AFAIK there's no legal way to "dispose" of someone for less than that.
And even if there were there are a lot of emotions tied up in funerals. For some people it can feel like an insult to the deceased to cost-cut, while others want religious services or memorials.

That said, I don't really agree with making it a guilt-trip for the potential deceased. But that's how the most successful advertising works - they play on your fears ot insecurities, or make you feel bad for not having their product/service.

The problem is that people are caught at a time of grief, no-one thinks that the funeral can be done in a different way and they worry about being disrespectful. I am having a woodland burial with a tree planted on me and no headstone. I would rather my family remembered me in their hearts rather than spend on the usual performance.

Shark
Many people wont have £100s spare to pay for a funeral and why should they?

Many basic funerals just an undertaker to take the body from wherever and then to graveyard, pay for grave site/digging, or crematorium and do paperwork will be nearly £2K (cost of local Bare minimum Budget price funeral deal near me) Thats not a small amount of money to find at short notice.
You seem oblivious to the real costs of funerals these days.

Lois that sounds (not being sarky) lovely but not everybody has that forward thinking and I know you can't just put a body in the back of a van and bury it in the woods all that still has to be planned and paid for.

I was interested in the direct to cremation thing advertised on tv recently. That would be my choice.
But I think funerals aren't for the dead they're for the living so I have bought a basic funeral plan and made my wishes so my kids don't have to.
I think the plans are a good thing but I've paid for mine over a year rather than give a penny interest to the funeral company.

The 'average cost' thing is so over the top if you read the tiny small print at the bottom of the screen. It includes things like paying for hotels for people coming to the funeral. Huh? Do people do that? If, for example, my Auntie dies in order to go to her funeral I would have to pay train fair and maybe a hotel. I wouldn't expect my cousin to pay for that. If I couldn't afford to go I would send flowers and card and write a personal letter to my cousin.

Martin Lewis of Moneysavingexpert fame says these plans are a rip-off... DM is trying to prepay her funeral costs with the co-op, after previously deriding the co-op as "not for people like us". Anyway she goes into a care home today, if she pegs it (unlikely) it will be the cheapest possible option I'm afraid. But she wont know about it anyway.

My parents took out funeral plans. My mother died in March and my father's death is expected any day. I am so grateful they did this, and they did it to spare me the cost and the thinking involved in finding undertakers and organising a funeral. I wouldn't have thought any less of them if they hadn't done this, but in the immediate aftermath of my Mum passing I knew they'd tried to ease things for me.

Think twice about being made executor of someone's will if you do not wish to be liable for funeral expenses

www.funeralzone.co.uk/help-resources/arranging-a-funeral/what-is-a-paupers-funeral-public-health-funerals-explained

"The law says that if someone has written a will, it is the duty of the executor to arrange and pay for their funeral, if the person did not leave enough of value to cover their own funeral costs"

You will lose control of where/when/how the funeral takes place. This may not bother you

"Councils have a responsibility for people who died within their boundary and may not take into account where the person had lived."

"You cannot choose the funeral director or the date or time of a public health funeral. Burials may take place in an unmarked graved shared with other people."

You will have to sign a written statement

"When this is the case, the next of kin will be asked to make a written statement to confirm that they are not prepared to arrange the funeral."

The Council will try and recover the money if they can

"Public funeral costs are regarded as a civil debt and local authorities have up to three years to reclaim some, or all, of a funeral’s costs from the estate of the person who has died."

I think everyone should look at the costs associated with dying and having read the really useful threads on here recently from a funeral director and crematorium technician it is clear even the simplest disposal costs quite a lot. DH and i have just prepaid for a direct cremation which has cost £1,595 each - so straight from place of death to cremation with ashes being returned to family for keeping/disposal. Weve done this because funeral costs are predicted to rise massively over the next 20 years and direct cremation could become £10k plus if we live 20 plus years more.

I hate them too OP, on every level. The fake jollity (tralala, I'm on top of the world because I've just paid for my funeral! Woohoo!), the fact that the people in the ads are obviously comfortably off and would not struggle to fund a funeral, the pressure for people who are not well off to pay for elaborate funerals.

I have no problem with the concept of funeral insurance or pre-paying for your own funeral, but the ads are awful.

The fake jollity (tralala, I'm on top of the world because I've just paid for my funeral! Woohoo!)

This made me laugh

I even got a free ballpoint with my paperwork. Beat that, haha!

Is a woodland burial plot really 'only' £400? I would have thought they would be much more expensive? Burial in a traditional cemetary is more expensive than a cremation.

I think even a cardboard coffin is £100-200, they have to support the weight of a body, they're much more than just a cardboard box.

Many people wouldn't have access to a car big enough to transport a coffin with any dignity either so would need to hire at least one funeral car and the people capable of lifting a body.

YANBU about the adverts, they are so manipulative and deliberately target a possibly vulnerable sector of the population who are of the generation to worry about debts of any kind.

The concept of funeral savings plan is fine, and I'm sure they come in very handy on the long term - I just can't stand the way they are marketed.

I went as simple and cheap as possible for my mum’s woodland burial (what she wanted) and got a friend to do the celebration afterwards. The undertaker’s bill was still £2500.

Martin Lewis is correct. There are many ways to arrange to cover funeral expenses. The best value ones are for people with assets and regular professional incomes who are in good health. The plans advertised on telly are for people without such recourse and desperate, usually post diagnosis, not to burden their families. That's what annoys me about them - their customer base are most definitely not Clive and Barbara, chatting pleasantly about their daughter's pregnancy in their paid off house, life insurance in place, ISAs maxed out and pensions funding trips to the Canaries over the winter.

Times have changed. My parents and their friends were very hard up but they always had an insurance policy to cover their funeral. The chap used to call every month and the money was always there for him.

People of their generation could remember work house funerals and would go without other things to avoid that fate.

I do kinda get your point OP. Those adverts are obnoxious. ‘Ooh I wish I could have a funeral that nice!’ Keeping up with the Joneses even in death. It’s no surprise that when you plan a funeral you constantly feel like there’s upselling involved. There’s a lot of guilt to spend more on a fancy occasion.

However, I think there is a need to make people aware of the costs and to encourage them to save some basic expenses. Agree with the poster that the ads are aimed at the wrong people really. There should be more awareness among families on low incomes and those who are likely to die with little or no estate.