funeral plans...are they worth it?

[triplets]

Lost my lovely Mum last year, has made me start to think about funeral costs. My dh and I are both very much older parents, its a long story.......am worried that our children would have to find the money if anything happened to us. Ok I am 60 and my dh is 72, our triplets are 15! Mums funeral last July cost almost £6000. Would I be better off taking out life insurance? Really need to think about this.............grim as it is. Thanks.

it may be grim but it is definitely going to happen so you are quite right to think about it.

you do need life insurance until your children are independent, but that is not this issue. You can pre-pay for funerals and fix the costs. I don't think regular payments into a funeral plan are sensible, makes more sense either to pre-pay or to save as normal, and specify a simple funeral. Which as you note is still quite pricey.

most important thing is to leave instructions about what you want. That makes it much easier when the time comes as there are no decisions to make and no scope for anyone to interfere. Your family will be able to say 'that's what she wanted' with absolutey certainty.

so would life insurance still be a good idea for me?

to answer that: what happens if you go under a bus tomorrow? Can your kids and husband manage without you or would it cost more? similarly, what happens if your husband goes under that bus?

think what incomes would die with you, what money would be needed to replace what you do, and what debts you would leave. If they would cause problems, then you need life insurance.

not everyone needs it - someone with no mortgage and no dependents probably doesn't. But do you?

Hi, I think maybe contacting a local funeral director would be a better idea. A parent passing is a traumatic thing for anybody to deal with but as you say you have teenagers and that I think would be worse. Planning a funeral as an adult is bad enough but for a young person I think would be to much.
A local funeral director will go through everything with you and work out costs on today's price. You would make payments upto that agreed price not like a funeral plan where you just make payments which might not be enough to cover the costs at the time you pass.
If you do a payment plan with a funeral director you can sort out everything for your funeral in advance which would mean your children would not have the trauma of having to do it. Just remember you do need to tell them which funeral director you have sorted the funeral with and that it has been paid for. Don't just keep it between you and your husband as you never know what is going to happen. Good luck and best wishes.

Thank you Helentad that is very good advice, I will act on that.