According to bereavement counsellors, Funeral Zone, the average cost of a funeral in the UK as at the 16th of May 2016 was £4,110 – the actual price, of course, depending on the particular arrangements chosen, the circumstances of the death, and the part of the country in which the funeral is to take place.
Whatever way you look at it, however, £4,110 is considerably more expensive than the maximum £700 allowance which the government makes available to those on benefits and who cannot otherwise afford the expense of a funeral.
You might find the prospect of leaving your relatives and loved ones with a bill of more than £4,000 on your passing to be an unacceptable burden. So what might you do?
Advance arrangements with your local funeral directors
One option is to make the arrangements you want well in advance of the event itself. You are likely to find that any reputable and accredited funeral director is likely to offer this service.
It has the advantage of making sure that, since you are making the arrangements, your funeral is likely to go in just the way you want it to. By making those arrangements and also paying for them in advance, you also have the opportunity of beating any further increase in the cost of your funeral. By paying at today’s prices, you may avoid the almost inevitable effects of inflation in the future.
Protected payments
The major drawback of putting everything, including the amount you have paid, into the hands of your local funeral director is the risk of the firm becoming insolvent in the future and going out of business. This carries with it the risk of your losing all you have paid over.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this dilemma and this comes in the shape of a prepaid funeral plan.
It works in a very similar way: you make all the arrangements you wish with your local funeral director and pay for those arrangements in advance. In this case, however, the payment is made to an authorised national provider of prepaid funeral plans.
Using this solution means that anything you have paid out is adequately protected. This protection may be provided by one of two ways:
- the funds are put into trust and remain safely available until they are needed; or
- the money is used to purchase a whole of life insurance policy, which pays out an assured cash benefit upon your death.
Either way, therefore, the payment you have made is safely protected and is available to pay the funeral director when the time comes.
If the funeral director you chose when first making the arrangements goes out of business during the interim, your funds are still available for payment to any alternative firm of funeral directors you may care to nominate.
A funeral plan may give you the security and peace of mind in knowing that the burden of financing your final wishes does not fall to your surviving family and loved ones, but has already been taken care of through your own foresight and forward planning.
Planning Ahead can Help Pay for Funeral Costs
Death is one of the two things that most people say are guaranteed in life, but it is also the most feared. No one wants to die, but unfortunately every single person on this earth will, and that means the sensible thing to do is prepare for it so that family members grieving a loss do not have to deal with it. Whether or not you take care of your funeral arrangements they will still have to occur once you pass, and leaving your family to do it will be another blow. If you love your family you may want to think about taking care of things now.
Of course, there are a lot more funeral costs associated with a funeral then you likely think. Most people have been to dozens of funerals, but they never actually contemplate how many arrangements and items need to be purchased and paid for. The list can get quite extensive very quickly which is why it is a good idea to set aside some time to make your arrangements in full. Leaving the long list to your family to take care of in just a few days following your passing can be a cruel last action, but it is a problem you can prevent.
To begin with you will need to choose a funeral home to handle your body and the arrangements. They will take care of pulling everything together that you have requested and cremation or burial depending on which you choose. Once you choose a funeral home you can start to coordinate everything else that will need to happen. In addition, the undertaker can walk you through the process to make sure that you do not leave anything out. They also know certain tricks to help make sure that you minimize the costs if possible.
For instance, you might not realize that insurance could help with buying a memorial headstone. A memorial headstone in most cases is not cheap, but you will want some type of marker for your grave regardless of cost. If you plan carefully and take out an insurance policy then when you die the money can be used towards your funeral arrangements. This will allow you to plan ahead for your memorial plot so that you don’t have to worry about your family absorbing the costs or a large part of your estate being used for the funeral.
Insurance can come in handy for other aspects of the funeral as well such as the coffin, funeral home costs, the graveyard plot, etc. Usually the insurance policy can be used on anything funeral related until the money is expended so it can be stretched a long way. There are many hidden fees such as the costs of opening and closing a plot that you likely are not expecting, so planning on having some extra cash for funeral arrangements is something that will greatly help your family out. This way they have the time to properly grieve and fondly miss you instead of worrying about financial matters.