pre paid funeral

HB58

I was glad to see your post Mojisola. My mum has an Age-Concern pre-payment plan and it's good to know that they seem to work as I expected.

My MIL died recently and, having done our research beforehand, the funeral costs were much as we expected. It must be so hard to be hit with extra costs at such a painful time

whippetowner

the pre payment plan mam had was through the funeral co ,we knew announcements in the paper were extra


we have asked 3 times for plan to be returned to us and each time the subject got changed and he never left it


I will have another go of getting the plan back


thanks for all of the replies

KMA

hi there my father informed me that he had a "fully paid up" funeral plan with Age Concern.


Recently he passed away and I contacted Age Concern to inform them that my father had passed away. They explained that a specific local funeral director was assigned to implement his funeral plan.


The local funeral director got in touch. They informed me that dad's plan included a cremation at the nearest crematorium, a hearse, coffin and celebrant. All we had to do was agree the date and time, and we had plenty of flexibility.


This "pre-paid" did not include a cortege (limo for direct family a whapping £240 extra for a 5 mile journey), nor newspaper notification, nor flowers.


We did the notifying ourselves, a friend provided a lift for the mourners in their nice jaguar, my sister did the funeral stationery, order of service etc herself and we bought our own flowers.


As the named lead on the funeral contract, I received a detailed listing of what was included in dad's plan, and was assured from the outset what was included and what was not.


Remember that if there are things that are outside the remit of the "pre-paid" or that it just did not get paid off in time, (which might possibly happen if the plan was paid by your relative in instalments) that you should be able to contact your relative bank manager to pay any further funeral director invoices from their estate. For some reason that was not a problem but other suppliers providing similar funeral related things like wake/flowers/cars might be problematic.


Hope that helps, hope you resolve the conundrum, not what you want at such a vulnerable time.

[Deleted User]

Sorry if this is slightly off topic - but I wanted to add it to the subject of pre-paid funeral plans. My father in law bought one of these 20 years ago but just before his death he decided to leave his body to medical research instead. So, there was NO funeral and NO refund. Something to bear in mind for anyone who is thinking of buying one.

bongonaut

Corona wrote: »

Sorry if this is slightly off topic - but I wanted to add it to the subject of pre-paid funeral plans. My father in law bought one of these 20 years ago but just before his death he decided to leave his body to medical research instead. So, there was NO funeral and NO refund. Something to bear in mind for anyone who is thinking of buying one.

This sounds like a whole of life insurance policy; many people buy these if a low monthly payment is a priority. The downside is that you may end up paying more in than the policy will pay out; and as you have found, there is no cash-in value and no refund if you stop paying for any reason.

A proper pre-paid funeral plan will usually refund the original amount paid less any admin fees.

Gingernutty

I arranged a pre-paid plan for my uncle through the Co-Op.

Everything except the flowers, the grave (arranged through Co-Op but paid to the local authority) and the headstone.

The disbursements were incorporated into the plan. It was explained to me that it was effectively an insurance bond which the Co-Op invested, should the price of any of the items go up, as it was all paid for already, there was no need to pay extra for those items.

The complicating factor for us was the cortege was larger than we needed.

Family bringing their own cars meant we didn't need a cortege - just a hearse.

That was a very strange conversation outside the church.....

whippetowner

I have been onto the funeral director and asked for mams plan to be returned .


I have been informed I will have to wait about 6 weeks as it is with the insurance company the director uses


I understand the flowers and announcements were extra I will just have to wait till the plan gets returned to see what was paid for


thanks for all the replies

Brickwall

Both my parents had prepaid plans, they included paper announcements too. We had nothing to pay although I had to pay for a car at dads funeral but that was down to dad. I sat with him to sort his plan out, he wasn't impressed at the cost of a car, the crematorium is on a bus route so dad said he wasn't paying for a car cause we could all go together on the bus, he wasn't joking either, lol!