5 Tips for Funeral Planning

Posted on November 25, 2022.

None of us likes talking about death, or funerals. But at some point, you’re going to shuffle off this mortal coil and need a funeral.

To some, this feels like death-obsessed prepping. That’s probably why just 36 percent of Americans have talked with or written plans for loved ones about their funeral, according to a 2021 survey by the National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA). You’re also likely to plan a funeral for a family member at some point, so you need to know how to make smart decisions. Here are some tips to help you.

1. Learn what’s involved

To plan a funeral, you need to know what happens at one. There are three general components: preparing the corpse, holding the ceremony and handling the interment.

There are a range of options for each. Embalming or cremation? A full service at a funeral home, a graveside one or a DIY ceremony? Who will be there? A viewing of the deceased or not? Burial in the ground or in a tomb, or ashes scattered someplace meaningful?

You can get funeral planning checklists online to help you know what decisions you’ll need to make.

2. Plan in advance

You can plan and/or prepay for your services in advance. Funeral Homes sell plans, in either an Insurance Product or a Trust Account, in which you lock in today's pricing and guarantee services at a later date. 

The drawback to prepaying using a trust account, Joshua Slocum, executive director of the Funeral Consumers Alliance (FCA), says, is that your situation can change between the time you pay and the time you die. Funeral homes go out of business, which leaves no one to honor the plan you bought. Or you may die in a city far from where you paid for a funeral and a plot. A much better approach to save money is to use a funeral insurance product such as Homesteaders, NGL, or United Heritage.

The benefits of the funeral insurance is that you can transfer it from funeral home to funeral home if you move or one goes out of business. You can also get coverage to cover the expenses and logistics of bringing your body home if you were to die away from home.

Another time that a prepaid funeral can be a smart move is if you are facing a Medicaid spenddown. You can keep some of your hard-earned money to pay for your services instead of leaving it up to your family, and you can also pay for some of your families end-of-life expenses too.

3. Find out average costs

The FCA has links on its site to itemized lists of funeral costs, by state. Check it out so you have an idea of what you can expect to pay in your area for everything from a casket to the cost of that final hearse ride to the cemetery.

4. Shop around

The national median cost for a funeral with burial in 2021 is $7,848, according to the NFDA. You need to treat it like any other large purchase. You wouldn’t buy a car from the first dealership you walked into. So don’t pay for a funeral without checking with more than one funeral home.

You may be able to save thousands of dollars just by going a few miles down the road. Call several funeral homes and get quotes. Some may be reluctant to reveal prices, but if they resist, insist. The Federal Trade Commission’s Funeral Rule requires them to quote prices over the phone or in person.

They are not required to give prices online or by email, but there’s a push underway on the part of consumer groups to update that 1984 rule for the digital era and require funeral homes to post prices online. You can get some pricing info online at the funeral comparison site Funeralocity.com, which offers itemized lists of goods and services available at 10,000 funeral homes, more than half of the nationwide total.

5. Understand the package deal

Funeral homes sell packages of goods and services, but sometimes there’s more wrapped into them than you want. Sometimes they don’t have all the goods and services you want. For example, a gravestone and cemetery plot may not be included in a package. Ask for an itemized list upfront, with prices for each service or item.

Source: AARP