Making advanced funeral arrangements is becoming more common. There are many reasons for why a person would want to preplan a funeral from saving money to saving your family angst. But as with any prepaid service, you want to familiarize yourself with the process so that you get the services that you paid for and nothing less. Here’s how to make sure that happens.
Think Through Your Funeral Service Options
Before you begin making advance funeral arrangements, give yourself time to really think about all of the options and what you want. Try to disregard any idea of what’s the “norm” or considered acceptable by others. Funeral services are highly personal and should truly reflect what you want rather than what someone else thinks is best.
Some things to consider include:
- If religious ceremonies or traditions are important to you.
- If you want services with people present.
- The people you would want present for services.
- Concerns over environmental impact.
Really explore what’s most important to you before making the first major decisions in regards to pre-planning funeral services.
Come Up With a Budget
Now that you know what type of funeral services you truly want, cost is the next consideration. Many people drastically underestimate the cost of funeral services. The costs have been steadily rising, which is why many people decide to pre-plan their own funeral.
Start by checking out the average cost for funeral services. The Nation Funeral Directors Association has average funeral costs for burial and cremation with funeral services. But those are just two of the disposition options that are available today, and that’s a national average. The cost of funeral services is local, not national.
You may need to call several local funeral homes to inquire about the standard rates for services that you are interested in having. This is definitely true if you want a newer type of disposition like water cremation or natural organic reduction.
Figure Out How You Will Pay for Funeral Services
Now that you have an idea of how much the funeral services will cost you can begin to think about how you’ll pay for them. The good news is, with pre-planned funeral arrangements you have more options and time to pay for the services.
Common ways to pay for pre-planned funerals include:
- Cash in-full payments
- Installment payments to the funeral home
- Setting up a trust
- Leveraging an insurance policy
- Create a payable-on-death account
The truth is funeral services are expensive even when you set them up in advance and you don’t have to pay for everything all at once. But planning ahead will make it much easier to get the funeral services you want without generating debt.
Write Out Your Funeral Service Wishes in Detail
Once all of the logistics are worked out, you’ll want to get it all down on paper. This will help you fully flesh out your ideas and make the planning go much smoother.
It may actually help to put the document aside for a week or so after writing everything out and then revisiting it. This will give you time and space to process it all before making any final decisions.
Writing everything out will also help you express your preferences and concerns once you start talking to funeral homes.
Know the Legalities of Preplanning a Funeral
There are a lot of rules and regulations around funeral services in Texas, including advanced arrangements. Consumers have protections just like they would with any type of professional service. Now that people are paying in advance for funeral services, specific regulations have been added to the Texas Funeral Code.
There’s one key requirement that consumers should know regarding the sale of advance funeral services. The state specifies that prepaid funeral services can legally be sold by funeral homes that:
- Have a trust-funded permit that’s been issued by The Texas Department of Banking.
- Sell services through a third-party trust-funded permit holder.
- Sell services through a third-party insurance-funded permit holder.
This is something you’ll want to verify before signing a preneed funeral contract. And keep in mind this regulation applies to funeral-related merchandise as well, but it doesn’t apply to graves, markers, columbarium niches or crypts.
Find Your Funeral Home
Now that you know what type of funeral services you want, roughly how much you can pay and the legalities it’s time to find a funeral home that can provide the professional services. Other than offering the services you want for a price that’s reasonable, you want to make sure the funeral home shares your values.
Our funeral home is a great example. We offer eco-friendly funeral services because minimizing our impact on the environment is important to us. It’s a value that most of our clients share with us, and it’s a primary reason many people choose to work with Cremation.Green.
Choose an Executor to Oversee the Funeral Arrangements
You may have pre-planned and paid for your funeral services, but someone is going to need to oversee the process once you’re gone. An executor for the funeral services can be named even if you don’t have a last will and testament.
The executor will make sure that the funeral arrangements you made are carried out the way you want. You’ll need to go over all of the details with them and share any documentation that you have. The person you name as executor can even come with you to talk with funeral home directors and act as a sounding board for your ideas.
It’s a big responsibility to take on, so always be conscious of the fact that some people are better suited and more willing than others to act as your executor.
At Cremation.Green we help individuals preplan their funerals so that it’s as eco-friendly as possible while still being affordable. Give our team a call, text or email at any time to find out how we can help you arrange the funeral services you really want.
