Funeral plan for person with learning disabilities

Flakie

Our son is 40 and shortly to move out of home into supported living. He has autism and learning disabilities. We are planning a different future now for him and us. As he isn’t able to make financial decisions for himself and we may not have total control over his finances in the future we were thinking about sorting out some sort of funeral plan or life insurance for him to cover his funeral costs when the time comes. He has an older brother who will be responsible for ensuring his well-being when we are gone or unable to do this ourselves who has children who we hope will take this on when their dad is unable to. Can anyone suggest or advise on any possible or appropriate way forward please? We assume we can spend some of his money officially for such a venture. Thanks. 

elsien

If you are his appointee then there should be no issue with doing this on his behalf. 

However my suggestion would be to wait and see what his new budget might be like before committing anything. If it’s a supported living where he’s paying his own utilities etc then he may prefer/need the money now.

After all a funeral plan doesn’t benefit him directly, it’s more for those left behind. And if he doesn’t have enough money to cover it when the time comes (although he may have; I know a few people in his situation who have savings towards the benefits levels) there is the basic local authority funeral option.

Keep_pedalling

Assuming you have POA or deputyship over his finances you can only spend his money on things that are in his best interest , and a funeral plan might be stretching it a bit for someone so young. I would suggest that you look at providing financial support for him after you have died by setting up a discretionary trust in your wills.

Albermarle

I would suggest that you look at providing financial support for him after you have died by setting up a discretionary trust in your wills.
We have a similar situation, but have been debating the pros and cons of setting up a discretionary trust in our wills,( or even when we are still alive) against just leaving more money to a very trusted family member to be used for the benefit of the disabled person in future.
The reason is that the more I read about trusts in general, the more I can see you are leaving a potential headache for survivors. Trust admin, cost, reporting to HMRC, setting up trust bank/savings/investment accounts ( not many providers) etc
I appreciate that a Disabled Persons trust is less complex and more beneficial then some others, but it does beg the question- why not just leave the money for the the person you were going to appoint as trustee anyway. I suppose the downside is that is that person dies, or gets divorced, the disabled persons money could get 'lost' ?

born_again

Re above.
There is also the issue that in leaving to a "trusted family member". You could potentially be depriving that person of any means tested benefits if they needed them.

sheramber

You haven't confirmed what authority you have to act for him in financial matters.  Whoever the authority is from could confirm whether what you want to do is allowed