Co-Operative Funeral Bonds

Dollarite

I thought it worth posting for those folk that may have bought their Cooperative Funeral Bonds a while ago to check with their local CO-OP Funeral Service to ensure they have the details of the older bonds. These do not have much in the way of funeral details that are covered with the bond as they were sold prior to the Gold, Silver and Bronze categories that they have at the moment.
This especially applies to those who have moved away from the area in which the bonds were bought.
We had an awful experience when we presented the bond my mum had bought in the 90's for close to £1000 being summarily dismissed as not being of use in Scotland as it was bought in the North East of England. They even added that we may need to transport my mother's body from Scotland where she had lived for over 10 years back to the North East and that 'they are the Coop not the cooperative,'as shown on the bond.
This was not the best time to be told you had a worthless piece of paper when your first meeting to plan your recently deceased mother was halted because they couldn't do anything for us and shown the door within ten minutes of entering the place. My mother had been so proud that she had managed to provide the cost of her funeral so that we didn't need to find the money to do so.
Calling the Funeral Service head office yielded nothing but calling what would have been her previously local COOP funeral establishment got the recognition of the bond and its validity within 30 seconds. Our local branch still refused to take the bond when they were called by their colleagues in the North East of England.
The Coop do not seem to have trained their staff and certainly have a poor system of acknowledging these older bonds.
If you or your relations have these bonds, check that the details are valid; it may save the extra stress we underwent.
There again, we just may have had unreasonable and poorly trained people. Whichever it is, I would warn anyone off buying a plan with the Coop. To encash the bond and go elsewhere would have resulted in us getting the face value of the bond less 20%. Shocking after they had £1000 for 30 years. 

Malthusian

This is why I would not buy a funeral plan with anyone. If she had simply left the money she used to buy the bond in her bank account, her executors wouldn't have had to go through this rubbish and would simply have used that money to pay for the funeral. If she had invested it sensibly, there is every chance (especially given the 30 year timeframe) that the money would have kept pace with increasing funeral costs.

Dollarite

Totally agree. That after the 30 year time frame and the 'administration' cost of 20% is shocking. This was pointed out but they said that they don't invest the monies paid into the bonds!

BooJewels

You have my sympathy for the distress this must have caused you - I can feel how it would have. My condolences too. 

I had a bad experience with CoOp FuneralCare dealing with my late husband last summer.  I went with them as there was a branch within a couple of miles and I thought I was supporting a local business (also rang other local undertakers in advance to ask questions and they were the only one to ring back) and dealing with a long established company in this field.  Apart from one lass who answered the phones and tried her best to sort things out for me, the rest of the staff just did not seem to care two hoots or grasp the sensitive nature of their business.  They offered me a refund of the amount I paid for a service that wasn't delivered and I never got it.  After a few weeks of checking my bank account every day hoping they'd done it (it was the principle, not the money itself, but I was going to donate it to the hospice that helped him - I even told them in advance that was what I'd do with it) I wrote and told them not to bother, but I would ensure that I warned everyone about the service I'd had from them and I hoped they'd consider the few quid they saved worth it.  Never heard from them again.  They lost at least my own business as I've instructed family not to use them and I had been considering paying in advance.

Having executed 2 estates and organised three funerals in the last couple of years, what I've decided to do is just put some money into a bank account that I'll make joint with my son and leave enough funds in it to pay the bills on the house for a while, my funeral etc.  My father did that each with my sister and I (not knowing how long it might to take to set up an LPA or estate settlement on his own bank accounts - which turned out to be very fast in both cases) and whilst we ended up only dipping into them very recently (having almost exhausted the actual estate account) in the last push of selling the house, knowing it was there and bills could be paid was a real weight off - so I'm in the process of doing the same.  Hopefully, that will help him.

Dollarite

I am sorry to hear of the problems you experienced BooJewels. It really does seem that there is little in the way of empathy in their service.

BooJewels

Thank you kindly.  It was rather distressing at the time - but with the passage of time, it has taken on a more comedic tone.  It ended up one of those ridiculous catalogue of errors that you just couldn't make up - so you have to see the funny side, for your own sanity. 

I thought I was done with it, until in December when I got a letter from the party that made the mistake, asking if I wanted to make a charity donation of £100 to have my husband's name on a star on their Christmas tree.  I walked straight upstairs with the letter in my hand and fed it into my industrial shredder.  So that'll be a 'no' then!  They didn't even have the sense to weed me from the mailing list and file me under 'best not'.