Can anyone recommend a best buy Funeral Plan?

brodev · 26 December 2007 at 8:57PM

lilac_lady wrote: »

Is buying a funeral plan a good idea?

A lot depends on when it is due to kick in. If is tomorrow I can think of a couple of people I might buy one for

soolin · 26 December 2007 at 9:42PM

My dad took one out earlier this year as it was becoming obvious he was going to need to move into proper care and he wanted the security of knowing that if his money ran out I wouldn't be worried about having to pay for his funeral.

He has the basic Co Op funeral plan, I think it was £2250 and for that he has a service, coffin all the ministers and funeral directors fees. The only extra we will have to pay for is a car to follow the hearse if we choose to have one. Dad was never one for funerals or for any 'nonsense' as he called it and always asked that we just gave his body away and be done with it when he died, but when he realised that was probably not going to be possible, leaving us with a funeral bill really worried him so the plan took care of that.

Mojisola · 27 December 2007 at 10:56PM

Similar to soolin - my parents are on benefits and can only have £6000 in savings before the benefits start to be affected. If you put aside savings for two funerals, it doesn't leave much leeway if you want to save up for big purchases to make life easier. By paying for two funeral plans, with Age Concern, they effectively have covered their funeral costs and can still have £6000 in savings.

Errata · 28 December 2007 at 7:17PM

Financially it may not be worth doing, as savings would perhaps earn more interest than the cost of a funeral would increase with inflation.
It's certainly not worth doing just to ensure the funeral directors know what the deceased's wishes were as documents relating to a funeral plan are as easily lost as a letter to those left behind giving instructions as to what's wanted, if you see what I mean.
Personally, the only instructions I would make sure EVERYONE knew about would be a request for donations to a specific charity or good cause instead of flowers/wreath/floral tribute.

moonrakerz · 28 December 2007 at 8:53PM

soolin wrote: »

He has the basic Co Op funeral plan, I think it was £2250 and for that he has a service, coffin all the ministers and funeral directors fees.

I don't claim to be an expert on funeral costs, as it's not the sort of thing one tends to buy that often , but £2250 seems a tad pricey to me. My mother's funeral last year, done by our local (family business) undertaker came to just under £1300. That included hearse, bearers, crematorium fees, vicar etc.
I was very pleased with the way it was handled.

It might be better to put the money into the building society. Banks and Building Societies will usually pay funeral expenses from the estate before Probate is granted.

Errata · 28 December 2007 at 11:28PM

I guess the cost of a funeral depends on whereabouts in the country it takes place. The last two I've arranged in West Yorkshire, one of them last week, were £1500 for crem coffin, hearse, vicar, crem fees, and services of the funeral director.
Oh dear, what a subject for Christmas time !
Happy new year to everyone.

soolin · 31 December 2007 at 4:05PM

Our last family funeral was a little over £3000 but we had an extra car and a full church service. My MIL three years ago was very basic and was approx £2000, so the £2250 didn;t seem unreasonable.

However the main reason we did this though was to have the funds set aside so that we can 'happily' (oh the irony) spend the rest on dad's care completely and give him the choice of care home for as long as we can and yet not worry about having anything left for the funeral later. The care home said it was also fairly standard to do this when someone was self funded to legitimately use some of the funds before they all get used to pay care home fees which are currently a tad under £2500 a month.

It might be expensive, but dad had peace of mind and for many elderly people funerals are a worry, and it is one less thing for me to worry about in the long term when anything happens to dad.

poppy_f1 · 1 January 2008 at 9:20PM

my parents bought funeral plans over 10 years ago, they decided what coffin etc they wanted - this was to take a lot of the arrangments out of everyones hands when they did die
have to say when my dad passed away last year it was a god send, me and my mum just had to take the paperwork down to the coop funeral directors and they just asked us for the up to date arrangements such as notices in papers, rememberance leaflets
we only had to pay something like £60 for the extras we decided on that day

it took away some of the emotional stuff such as deciding on the coffins, whether it was a burial or cremation
and i have to say im glad my mum has hers as when she passes it would just be left to me to deal with everything and at least i know most of the funeral arrangements are sorted

Whitefiver · 3 January 2008 at 7:46PM

Hi,

All I can say was that I was very grateful to my parents for taking out funeral plans - made my life much simpler when the time came..... (and no, I don't mean that I didn't have to fund the funerals!)

I cannot vouch for the financial implications, but I believe my parents took theirs out around ten years before they died, (and in my Father's case, significantly longer), so I would think it was probably worthwhile for them.

Regards,

White

Bonbon · 3 January 2008 at 8:16PM

Whitefiver wrote: »

Hi,

All I can say was that I was very grateful to my parents for taking out funeral plans - made my life much simpler when the time came..... (and no, I don't mean that I didn't have to fund the funerals!)

Regards,

White

I have to agree that it made things easier at such a sad time.There were no decisions to be made, as my mother had arranged the lot....including the music she wanted. I knew that the day was exactly as she wished.

Can anyone recommend a best buy Funeral Plan?

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