Pre paid funerals

oap

Hello, we are just embarking on a pre paid funeral, a friend of ours recommended this she had paid £1200 four years ago and her husband died last year and the cost had gone to nearly twice that, but the price is held however long it is before you pass on.

The rates vary dependant on what you want, but it is roughly £2500
at today's prices.


Does anybody know how much a cremation is now, including all fees , hearse and a car, but no music in the crematorium. Decent coffin etc., apparently prices are going up all the time and it is a way of holding the price. We are choosing first to die, the second one hopefully will be paid for by the sale of our house!! Not all of them will do this, you have to nominate which is impossible really.

All the person left behind has to do is pick up the phone and it is all sorted.

We just wonder if it starts off a bit more expensive to help cover future costs.

Thanks, oap

Errata

Costs depend on which part of the country you live. Much cheaper in the north east than London or the south west.

dumb_blonde

my parents have just organised theirs,the funeral home have packages such as standard,middle(forgot the correct word ) and premium.Im afraid im not sure whats included but i think they paid £2000 for the medium one. Im sure they would discuss these or any individual requirements you might have without you having to commit to anything.Sounds morbid to some, but i think its very practical.

morag1202

I organised a funeral in Sept this year which cost £2,350 and when I paid the bill I picked up the pre pay leaflet and found the equivolent would only cost £230 more. This was the Co-op in West Yorkshire.

Hawkeye4aneye

The reason for the additional amount is the admin charges and the fact that the money is held by Trustees normally in Trust until death occurs which could be in 10, 15 or 20+ years time. At this point you don't have to pay another thing unless you need an extra car or additional items. As the cost of a funeral goes up about £100-£150 per year overtime you are bound to pay more unless you die within the first few years.

Of course you could invest the same amount of money and hope that this will be enough at the appropriate time but as with all investments the value can go up as well as down and there may not be enough. Insurance premiums of course depend on how long you live and you could end up paying well over the amount of the eventual payout.

P.S. I have connections with a company who do Funeral Plans but not involved with selling them.

oap

Thank you all,, that is most helpful, was not sure if we are allowed to mention company names, seems that is ok, so we had the Co-op plans and Age Concern Plans by post and looked at others on the net etc.,

My friend had the Co-op as mentioned above, and they were very good, it never covers hymns etc, that is always an extra, but everything else is covered.

We have gone with Age Concern because it was cheaper than the Co-op but the main reason is the Co-op and others want you to name who the funeral would be for there is just hubbyand myself in our seventies, hubby 78 me 73, who knows which one it would be, however,,the Age Concern cover you for first to die as I mentioned earlier, so that is a great help, as we can only afford to buy one. We are doing free of interest over 12 months.

You have to use the nominated director by Co-op, there is a nominated one about 15 miles away, Age Concern have a nominaed director about 9 miles away, but we asked if we can choose our own more local one and a recommended one and they said if we asked them and they agreed that would be ok and they would get in touch with them, well they did agree, so it seems the Age Concern package is more flexible.

Thanks again for your input, MSE forum is such a great help for absolutely everything any of us out here need to ask, cheers, oap:T

scotsbob

£2500 seems very expensive. In this part of the world it is about £1500.

http://www.cremationservices.co.uk/disbursements.html

I guess like any other service you are best to shop around.

oap

Thank you very much for replying, the 2500 includes funeral director as well, ie absolutely everything, ie booking crem,paying crem,paying docs fees, coffin, laying out,taking to chapel of rest, hearse and a car, advice on everything you need to do ie registration of death etc, visit to the chapel of rest, attendance by funeral director at service
funeral procession directly to crem. List of floral tributes
etc, bereavement advice, crem fee,ministers fee,docs fees.

You need to be over 50. The price you pay today is the price you pay whenever you die irrespective of how long you live and what the price is at the time of death.

So maybe if you add all this in to your fees it might not be too far away from the price.

Scotland could be cheaper I suppose, we are in North Wales, but the Age Concern and Co-op is for wherever you live.

Best regards, and thanks again,oap

Errata

I arranged a funeral with an independent undertaker in West Yorkshire 12 months ago for £1500 which included all the things you've specified, except the car and bereavement advice which weren't needed.

I hope you live long and and benfit from your forethought.

oap

Yes it does make us wonder, my mum passed on 12 years ago and all this cost £900! I did ring Age Concern to see if there were added monies in to cover them, but they said that was the price of the funeral at todays price, hence my question on here, have twentyeight days to change our minds, paying it monthly, for 12 months, will do a bit more local research I think. (going up by £175 soon)

It is rather sensitive asking local folk how much it costs, will try and see if we can get the info ourselves.

Many thanks for all the help! Always so much appreciated. oap

Errata

You could always ask some local undertakers to give you an estimate of costs at today's prices, then try and figure out how much that would increase over the years due to inflation. Which may not be at the same level it's been for the last 20 or so years. HTH