AIBU to think death is expensive.

[Dinoswearunderpants]

I just still can’t get over the cost of death/funerals in this country.

My Dad recently passed away and I had to arrange everything. There was a small funeral plan (Sunlife who were horrific to deal with!) in place but there was still a few hundred pounds shortfall I paid. My dad honestly thought he had enough money to full pay for his funeral and a little left over. No other assets and sadly a few debts.

He died in the hospital (which I blame for his death but that’s another matter) and we had to pay £82 just for a doctor to declare him dead. That’s utter madness! That was an itemised item on the funeral home invoice.

To transfer him 10 mins from the hospital to the funeral home, £280. To get him dressed £200. We didn’t choose embalming or to view him but if we had wanted to, embalming would have been £200 and £50 for each viewing.

Dad said he wanted a cardboard box for his coffin as it was "going to get burnt anyways" (his words) those coffins cost way more than the MDF ones. The wicker ones started at £1500.

I feel like it’s all so expensive. The ‘professional fees’ for the funeral home were £1200. Everything else was charged separate. In total it cost £5,500. My poor dad was a pensioner on state pension, had bugger all to show for all his hard work. I wish he could have used that £5,500 to enjoy life a little more.

I’m not really sure of the purpose of this post but it’s also to maybe get people talking about death and funerals. A huge issue I had was his paperwork was all over the place. I only found the life insurance policy numbers from his direct debits. I’ve just bought an A-Z book so I can keep a list of all my important details such as pensions, life policies etc to try and make it easier to contact everyone in the event of my death.

Just to add even more issues, DWP paid Dad his pension for a full month and now they're asking me (because I informed them of his death) for the overpayment back. It's about £150. I can't believe they're going after me for it. He literally had zero money left after the funeral was paid. The money in his account (which included this pension payment) went straight to paying for his funeral.

I'm so sorry for your loss @Dinoswearunderpants and everyone else who's had to go through this. It makes the loss of a loved one so much worse to cope with.

When my dad passed away 2y ago the itemised bill said
CREMATION
MEDICAL REFEREE
ORGAN & ORGANIST
STREWING
TRIBUTE SCREENS
WEBCASTING
AUDIO CD
AUDIO VISUAL DVD ADVANCE DELIVERY
EXTRA CHAPEL TIME
PALLBEARER
VAT @ 20%

I've no idea what half the things were as we didn't use them!
The total cost was £3,600. And the medical referree's fee (the £82) is because it's illegal to cremate someone on the say-so of just one death certification - there has to be an independent verifier.
The cost of burying his ashes with mum's in the churchyard (and the vicar's additional costs) were also included. They were both regular attendees when well enough, and the church were really helpful.

When my mum passed away (5y before dad) the cremation etc. cost well over £6k. Different (and much worse!) funeral director, same town, same crem, and I still regret I didn't know about the other one back then.

Getting the gravestone re-engraved on the other hand... was a tale and a half. Let's just say that after a year of squabbling about a distressing error (theirs) the stone finally made it back up and I've never received an invoice. And I'm not about to ask about it.

Your age not responsible for your dad's debt. If he had no funds left tell the DWP and don't offer to pay yourself.

My mum, Catholic and burial in Northern Ireland, put some money each month into her Credit Union to pay for her funeral, she had all the details and enough money. Abysmally there was no wake after which was disappointing, because my brothers didn't arrange it. We all gathered together for a meal as a family. Will never forget that. She passed away recently and much love to you @Dinoswearunderpants

I'm going for a direct cremation with money for a big monthly shop and a takeaway after. I demand a 🥂 after! I will be dead but memories live on xx

I have no idea, the funeral director just listed everything that was included and I know it was a nice lined coffin, cars, church service, cremation service and sorted the ashes in a box too. Didn’t pay a thing. My Mum only paid £800 for it.

The funeral director did comment how exceptionally good the plan was. It was with a chain of funeral directors rather than an insurance policy.

@Dinoswearunderpants If there is no money left in his estate, you should just tell DWP that after his funeral was paid, there was nothing left. YOU are not responsible personally for paying it back. Same goes for any other requests for payment of any kind which may have been due to be paid by him. If there had been a house to sell, then they would have had to wait until it was sold, but you say he hadn't any other assets. You may find that there is some rebates/refunds due to him. I got some refunded to her estate when my Mum died.

BUT do not pay any of his debts from your personal finances. They will write them off if there's no money in his estate

I take it you are the Executor? But yes - very expensive. My Mothers was about £4,800 and it wasn't anything fancy at all

So sorry for your loss @smoothieooo .

I've worked as a funeral arranger and the funeral director should liaise direct with the plan provider to get the payment after the funeral. We would contact the provider first to confirm the death and then the provider would let us know how much the plan was worth and what was covered. Anything over and above was paid by the family.

We have a low cost service near us. They are remarkable people. They use vans, not hearses, the coffins are cardboard and very cheap. They are so kind. They will take you to gather wild flowers from their field and charge you nothing. They make delicious food and serve it at their home after the funeral. We need more people like this. I am so sorry OP.

It can hardly be ordinary cardboard though, can it? Even for a light body it’d have to be seriously heavy duty, never mind for anyone fat.
I’m having visions of a sub-standard cardboard coffin breaking just as they’re carrying it down the aisle of the crem, body falling out. That’d certainly liven things up a bit…😱

Direct cremation cost £1200 when I organised it recently.
My relative was very elderly, our family is very small.
we are going to get together later in the year for a nice meal to remember her.

My mother had a Sun Life Plan. She has dementia so I have LPA for her, and I kept getting requests to pay more each month as the full cost would not be covered. I cancelled the plan, it was throwing good money after bad.

Every time I see a Sun Life ad on the TV it makes me grind my teeth!

Our local funeral home does a Direct Cremation for £1491, and that is what she is going to have.

Mum past and was the same expensive

With regard to the overpayment, read this:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/01/dwp-has--no-legal-power--to-force-you-to-repay-pension-or-benefi/

Yes, funerals are expensive. A fairly standard cremation in London area, for my DH, cost well over £6000. I actually found Sunlife excellent to deal with though.

Condolences.

This may help some people www.gov.uk/funeral-payments/eligibility

Wow, so it appears that they only actually pursue you for overpayments to add to your pain!

It's not even always the paying back the money; it's the speed at which they demand it (presumably wanting to get in there quickly before it's been spent/distributed) and the fact that getting maybe a few hundred quid at most from you is their very top priority, when yours is clearly grieving your deceased loved one.

Plus, as I said before, the 'we're sorry to hear of your loss' when they most obviously aren't sorry at all: they're clearly happy because it means they don't have to pay them any more money; indeed they're happily trying to grab back whatever they can.

I realise that settling financial matters needs to be done, but there really is a time and a place - especially considering how much state pension each person ends up getting in their life (if any) is a real lottery anyway.

Was there a cultural or legal reason why you couldn't have organised the wake yourself, if they couldn't be bothered?

It seems a great shame to have missed out unless your hands really were tied.

... they have to have premises with cold storage, 24 hour access, and special waste disposal. They need to staff those premises and have staff on call 24 hours a day

They need too have this somewhere, yes, but certainly not at every premises.
I can't speak for elsewhere, but around my way they do all the embalming/storage at a central premises which most FDs use, and even the 24/7 callouts are done by staff from that facility rather each being handled by an individual company if that makes sense?

Obviously each FD will have to pay for this, and of course there's the transportation for viewings to cover as well, but at least it means there aren't a couple of staff losing sleep through being on call all the time

And I don't blame you for cancelling that SunLife plan, @catofglory - maybe some differ, but aren't most sold on the basis of a one off payment and then not having to think about it again unless you want extras when the time comes?

Is this in Kent by any chance? I used to know a chap whose family businesses were Funeral Directors and builders, and they started off exactly the same way in the 1800s, as carpenters making coffins. He had some cracking stories. Couldn’t visit any friends in hospital as the other patients panicked when they saw him stroll down the ward, thinking he was there to measure them up. The staff asked him not to come any more.

Funeral costs can come as a shock to anyone who’s never had to organise one before. But when you think it’s a business where you have to do things properly otherwise it falls apart badly (as the recent case in Hull showed), and not cutting corners takes money. Tons of paperwork, liaising with the crematoria and the graveyards, expensive facilities to securely store the deceased at cold temperatures, processes to make sure the right body goes to the right funeral, customised vehicles are expensive to buy and maintain - the list goes on.

It starts right after death as you have to pay the registrar for every copy of the death certificate. I’d accept having to pay for duplicates, but no, even the first one incurred a charge. For some people even that tenner is a big deal. Outrageous.

Just make sure someone has legal access to that money when you die. I’m in the US and assets are regularly frozen upon death which means that people have to scramble for funds before the estate is placed in probate.

in a former life (and job) one of my worst days was when I was informed on a recorded line that someone had died. I had to immediately lock the account and explain to a little old lady why 🥺

After that day I got pretty good at spotting the situations before the person said anything to clearly and would start coughing.. tell them I had a bad connection then answer the question that I thought I had heard them ask which was “what happens to a joint account when one of the owners dies”.

Funny thing almost all of those calls ended with a balance inquiry or a withdrawal request.

I got a fair few heartfelt thank yous for that random answer I gave them which apparently excused my interruption.

I was so intrigued I just looked up SunLife's plans, @catofglory. I realise you've cancelled it now, but it definitely still says "Putting a plan in place for paying for your own funeral could ensure that all these costs are covered, no matter how much funeral costs increase in the future"

Unfortunately the first google result was a warning about a scam where you get calls to ask for transfers to top up a plan ... I do hope you weren't subject to one of those

I think you've been a bit ripped off there. I know funeral plans are all different, but the only thing not covered by my Dad's (who died late last year) was the embalming fluid, which made me laugh. Of all the things not to be included, ffs. Charging £50 a visit to view the body is bloody outrageous. We were allowed to go as many times as we wanted, so my mum obviously went a few times. No charge at all. They couldn't have been kinder either. Death is big business but there are still decent undertakers out there.

@Ethelswith - Thank you x

@saltinesandcoffeecups that's such a lovely and thoughtful thing to do - I really appreciate people like you.

As someone who has recently started working in the funeral business as a casual helper you are dead right excuse the pun.

People need to consider that people like me have to be on call 24 hours a day, go out in all winds and weather's to pick up a dead body. My boss is struggling to get anyone prepared to do this. He pays 2 of us £100 to collect a body. Plus running suitable vehicles, having correct storage for bodies.

He has to prepare the body, as it's not common to embalm in the UK there is a risk, if there is a delay for whatever reason ,(like the 3 month delay we had recently when the family were arguing who was going to pay)

A new hearse is over £170k. Limos are also expensive.

There is a lot of time spent on organising, liaison with crems, churches, family, printers.

Yes they make money, but would you like to pick up a dead person straight from the autopsy suite, y incision clearly visible...which was my first job

Saying would you like to do it, is a pointless question to ask since you don't have to do it - there are other jobs - you choose this one. Expecting us to think of the poor funeral people instead of the sometimes extremely impoverished grieving families is a stretch.
And you know we have no choice but to pay

Yes it is. We are dealing with MIL death and it surprised me how much we have had to pay out. Fortunately we have savings we've used and we will get it back from her accounts etc when it's sorted but it must be so stressful for people who don't have any money to sort things out. Just adds more awfulness to a horrible time.