What Are Prepaid Funerals?

Decoding Prepaid Funerals And What Are They Anyway?

A prepaid funeral is an advance plan that a person makes regarding their funeral arrangements, cremation or burial, memorial service and other related details — and pays the costs involved well in advance, when they are still alive. In most cases, prepaid funerals involve funeral planning at a trusted funeral home. For instance, if your parents and their parents before them have traditionally enlisted the services of an established funeral home in your locality, you can also approach the place for pre-planning your funeral arrangements. If this is something you’re considering, it’s best to know all about how prepaid funerals work and what you should consider during the process. 

How Do Prepaid Funerals Work?

Funeral pre-planning and paying the costs in advance help you make your funeral arrangements and take care of the expenses before you pass on. Here is a closer look at how prepaid funerals work.

1. Getting to know the services and costs

Typically, if you decide to make arrangements for a prepaid funeral, the funeral home that you approach will give you a list of the services and areas you can plan in advance, as well as the costs they will entail. As per the FTC’s Funeral Rule, funeral homes cannot deny sharing the pricing details if you enquire about them.

2. Taking the help of a funeral director 

You can also enlist the help of a funeral director to help plan various aspects of your funeral, such as selecting a cemetery, purchasing a burial plot, deciding the finer details of your memorial service and the like. Once you have the particulars sorted, you can get a better idea of the total cost of your funeral. If this is still not within your budget, you can make some adjustments to bring down the total outlays. 

3. Making the payment for your funeral

Once you’ve done that, you can proceed to pay your funeral costs fully as a lump sum amount, or you can opt to pay it in installments if the funeral home offers this feature. Many funeral homes will give you the option to pay the costs over a few years’ time. You can include these details in the terms and conditions of the contract for your prepaid funeral. 

What Expenses Are Covered In Prepaid Funerals?

Before you begin the journey to pay for your funeral in advance, you need to know what expenses will be covered and what won’t. Typically, the costs you need to account for include the following:

• The service fee of the funeral home
• The cost of transporting the remains to the home
• Embalming costs if needed
• Payments for the facilities and the staff needed to manage the funeral ceremony
• The cost of the hearse or the service car
• The cost of a casket or coffin
• The cremation costs (if you opt for a cremation)
• The cost of a funeral burial vault or grave liner
• The cost of buying a plot at a cemetery

These costs may vary from one state to another, but broadly speaking, some expenses are guaranteed while others are not. Guaranteed expenses are essentially locked in. This means that irrespective of what the cost of the said product or service may be at the time of your demise, your loved ones need not pay any additional costs for those items. In other words, they are locked in. If an item is not marked as guaranteed, there is no assurance of the price. If that particular product or service costs more when you pass away, your family will have to pay the difference. 

It goes without saying that it’s always best to choose guaranteed prepaid funeral plans, so you can lock in the price today and sit back and relax. The peace of mind is one of the greatest rewards in funeral pre-planning, particularly when the expenses are also taken care of.

How Much Do Prepaid Funerals Cost?

The exact sum will, of course, depend on the services and products you choose as a part of while pre-planning your funeral arrangements. The cost can range from as low as $2,000 to as high as $10,000 or more. 

Weigh The Pros And Cons And Choose Guaranteed Prepaid Costs For Peace Of Mind

If you want to eliminate the uncertainty associated with paying for your funeral ceremony in advance, ensure that you opt for guaranteed items only during the funeral planning phase. Titan Casket can help you here. You can pre-plan your casket and pay for it in advance without any worry because the price is locked in and your loved ones need not pay any additional costs later on.

Casket Pre Planning Made Easy

We'll help you purchase your pre-plan. You'll lock in today's price, ensure that your wishes are respected, and remove this financial responsibility from your family.