There are many benefits of preplanning your funeral or cremation that may help you during your life, as well as protect your loved ones after your passing. In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of preplanning for your family.
To receive all the benefits of preplanning, most people will work directly with a local funeral home. Many people have a specific type of funeral or cremation service in mind when they decide to preplan. Some people only have a general idea as to what type of service they may want. The important thing to know is that, in either case, you can start the process now.
Guaranteed Funeral Prices
By preplanning directly with a funeral home, the funeral home will typically put together an agreement promising to provide the services and merchandise selected, often guaranteed against inflation, in exchange for the funds set aside in an insurance policy (burial insurance) or trust set up specifically to cover the funeral expenses.
Flexible Payment Options
The funds are often set aside in a lump sum, though depending on factors like age, payment options are usually available as well. The policy can be made irrevocable, though in order to maintain as much control over your arrangements as possible, it is not recommended to irrevocably assign a policy to a funeral trust unless you’re certain that the funds won’t be needed for anything but funeral expenses, or if you’re going to be applying for Medicaid.
Your Funds are Protected
Once your decisions have been made and funds set aside, your funeral planning work is complete. If something were to happen to you at any point, your funds would be protected and your arrangements documented, reducing stress on your loved ones during an emotionally difficult time.
Protecting Your Loved Ones
By making your own funeral service decisions in advance and pre-funding your plan with a trust or life insurance, you are protecting your loved ones from the angst of not knowing what type of funeral or cremation service you would have wanted.
You may not have to worry if you live with your spouse, and you both know exactly what the other person wants for their funeral. When the time comes, they will be able to make those decisions. But what if you don’t have one specific person who is legally responsible for making these decisions?
If your next-of-kin are your children or your siblings, they may each have a different opinion on what to do after your passing. There’s no better way to let your family know what you would have wanted than by deciding everything for yourself in advance.
Expenses Will Be Covered When Needed
Not only does preplanning protect your family emotionally, but it can protect them financially as well from what could be a pretty significant expense, especially if it is unexpected. You may be able to make payments on your preneed arrangements while you are living, but that is usually not the case for your next-of-kin at the time of need, when most funeral homes today expect payment to be made in full at the time that the arrangements are made.
Prefunding your arrangements makes available a source of funds to pay for your funeral or cremation expenses almost immediately, and any excess funds are returned to a named beneficiary (tax-free) or your estate. And because of the way that funeral homes guarantee the cost of services and some merchandise, many people end up saving a lot of money by prepaying for their funeral; the sooner in life that you fund your prearrangements, the more you tend to save.
As you can see, there are many benefits of preplanning your funeral or cremation for your family. Preplanning may help you during your life, as well as protect your loved ones after your passing.
