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Planning and prepaying for burials
and funerals
By Robbie
Woliver • Bankrate.com
The California
Department of Consumer Affairs suggests several ways to prepay
burials and funerals:
- You can choose from pre-need trust contracts,
which pay for funeral and cemetery service. Look first at a guaranteed
price plan, which protects you and your family from future price
increases.
- To guarantee prices of cemetery goods, such
as a vault or a marker, buy them and have the cemetery store them
until they are needed.
- Earmark a portion of your savings for your
funeral expenses and ensure that your family members and attorney
are informed and that provisions are made for your survivors to
withdraw the funds at your death. You can change your mind at
any time.
- You can establish a POD (Pay On Death) account
with your bank, designating the funeral establishment as the beneficiary
of funds upon your death. Be sure to inform family members, the
funeral establishment, your chosen executor and your attorney
of the provisions of the account. POD accounts may involve service
fees, and interest earned is taxable. They may be canceled without
penalty.
- Buy additional life insurance equal to the
value of the funeral and arrange for your beneficiary to handle
the arrangements in accordance with your stated wishes.
- Buy funeral insurance through the funeral
establishment, which becomes your beneficiary. You preselect the
casket, plot, etc., and the price may be guaranteed. If the price
is guaranteed, the funeral establishment cannot charge your relatives
more than the contract states, even if prices rise.
- If you choose traditional burial, you will
need to purchase a plot (unless you are eligible for burial at
no cost in a national cemetery). Prices may vary widely between
different cemeteries and between different locations in the same
cemetery. There is also a fee for opening and closing the grave,
and you might be required to buy an outer burial container such
as a grave liner or vault to help protect and stabilize the casket.
In addition, there is usually a separate endowment care fee for
maintenance and grounds keeping.
- Burial in a mausoleum involves purchase of
a crypt, opening and closing fees and charges for endowment care
and other services.
- If cremation is chosen, a written authorization
must be signed before cremation can proceed. This authorization,
or a separate contract, indicates the location, manner and time
of disposition of the remains, and includes an agreement to pay
for the cremation, for disposition of the cremated remains and
for any other services desired. If you want to arrange and prepay
for your own cremation, you can legally sign the authorization
for cremation form yourself.
- A casket is not required for cremation, but
a combustible cremation container is. A cardboard box created
for the situation is acceptable. You do not have to buy the container
from the funeral establishment or crematory, but it does have
to meet the standards set by the crematory.
-- Posted: March 24, 2000
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