Dignity Funeral Plan

Sarkydee

My experience waste of money. Mum joined in 2008 paid in full, they didn’t alert her when her chosen funeral director closed and when it came to organising her funeral we were offered an alternative which she wouldn’t have wanted as other side of town. New funeral then organised by ourselves and plan cancelled. Dignity did charge £350 cancellation fee even though they’ve had her money in their account for 14 years. 

relishy57

I have a Dignity funeral plan set up 10 years ago. I have found when I have moved area or a funeral director had to be changed that their replies/ contact to myself have been prompt and efficient.I set mine up in my 50’s as buying one for terminally ill husband and it made process more easy to look at them together and buy for each of us. Husbands funeral went very well and as expected a few months later. 

Sorry of course to hear that your experience has been a bad one which you don’t need at this difficult enough time. Have you considered writing to them when you feel able and expressing your concerns?
Im pleased that regulations have been passed to regulate this industry as it is a lot of money to have paid out to not get what you were expecting. Hopefully I won’t need mine for many years but it is peace of mind to know that it is sorted.

MEM62

Sorry for your loss.  

Sarkydee said:

We were offered an alternative which she wouldn’t have wanted as other side of town. 

Once you mum had passed I am struggling to see that the location of the funeral director would have made any difference to her as long as the actual funeral arrangements were in line with her wishes.  

Technosaurus

I'm sorry for your loss Sarkydee.

MEM62, The location clearly won't have made a difference to the deceased but it may have meant family/friends were unable to visit her, hence I'd imagine where the annoyance comes from? Though I personally can't imagine I'd find it so annoying that I'd fork out a few thousand pounds to a different funeral director because of it, I'd just get a taxi (unless the town in question is London, and even then it'd still work out cheaper!)?

I will say that OP's handling does seem a bit heavy - going to the hassle and expense of arranging a whole different funeral, then being surprised Dignity wouldn't give them the money back purely because the location wasn't ideal? It's very rare that location of the body is such an absolute deal-breaker - perhaps mentioning that the location was a problem at the time of death might have seen them make special arrangements for people to access the body (eg opening out of hours, picking vulnerable people up from the other side of town etc)?

There's more to this I feel, were there any disputes with Dignity about other aspects of the service that led you to go elsewhere? Is there any reason, other than location, you didn't raise a complaint and just shelled out for a closer funeral director?

Technosaurus

The £350 cancellation fee is also strange.

Does that mean they did transfer the money in the plan over in the end?

If yes, that's a fairly standard, if annoying, admin charge for something that they've handled for 14 years. A high price to pay for not wanting to travel to the other side of town in my opinion, but at least you got most of it back (appreciate inflation means that whatever was left in the plan would probably need to be significantly added to).

If they didn't transfer any money over but wanted to charge £350 for seemingly nothing, there's nothing stopping you from laughing in their face, walking out and buying a funeral from any other funeral director, you wouldn't have to pay £350 for the privilege of NOT using Dignity's services as far as I'm aware.