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Your Three Most Common Options For Pre
Planning a Funeral
By Christopher P Hill
When you think about the fact that every day many people
die unexpectedly for a wide variety of reasons, one of
the best gifts you can give your loved ones TODAY is
pre-planning your funeral. In fact, most financial
professionals firmly believe that creating an
end-of-life plan is an essential and necessary component
of a sound comprehensive financial plan.
Since funeral pre-planning is viewed as a thoughtful and
forward-looking strategy, it serves a very similar
purpose to life insurance. And speaking of life
insurance, a funeral pre-plan can be as simple as a
written document spelling out your last wishes and
preferences, or it can be significantly enhanced when
used combination with life insurance. This is what is
commonly referred to as funeral insurance because it
provides the added value of a lump-sum of money that is
specifically designed to pay for all of your end-of-life
expenses..
THE FIRST commonly-used type of preplan is commonly
referred to as a Family Record Guide. This Family Record
Guide is basically a written preplan which consists of a
detailed summary of key personal matters such as
financial, insurance, last wishes, burial wishes,
funeral preferences, and much more. This guide serves as
documentation to summarizes exactly how you want your
financial, personal, and funeral affairs to play out.
You can locate a copy of the "Family Record Guide" in
most Funeral Homes, Cemeteries, as well as by searching
on the Internet..
The reality is that this memorial service is your
end-of-life plan, so the purpose of pre-planning a
funeral is mainly to turn this into the "celebration of
your life". This advanced planning helps accomplish this
purpose, mainly because you are giving your family and
loved ones a treasured memories by relieving them from
the burden of making such difficult financial and
emotional decisions during a time of loss.
The second most option for preplanning your funeral is
called a Pre-Need Plan.
By using this plan for pre-planning a funeral, you are
creating a powerful gift of love by proactively choosing
to create your comprehensive funeral plan in advance.
However, when working on creating a comprehensive
end-of-life strategy, we strongly encourage you to seek
the help of a credible and qualified Pre-Need
Specialists. These experts can help you can create an
"all-inclusive" funeral plan and contractual agreement.
The reason this Pre-Need Plan is often referred to as an
"all-inclusive" plan is because it allows you to:
1. Create your end-of-life planning preferences,
services, and select preferred merchandise.
2. Simultaneously purchase an insurance policy with an
adequate death benefit (or face amount) to cover the
total costs of this end-of life plan you've created.
3. This plan is insured for life, meaning that should
the costs increase over time due to inflation, all of
your funeral expenses are still FULLY locked in and
covered, regardless of inflation and price increases
over time.
Another main advantage in using a Pre-Need Plan, whether
using an insurance policy or a Funeral Trust, is the
ability to both preplan AND prepay your end-of-life
plan. This allows you the peace-of-mind to know that
your loved ones do not have to address many of the
difficult questions, concerns, uncertainties, worries,
or stresses...especially at a time of such grief and
loss.
The third most common way to pre-plan a funeral is
called a Final Expense Plan.
Similar to a Pre-Need Plan, a person uses both the
prepayment aspect of a funeral preplan, and also
attempts to take care of the insurance costs by
purchasing a life insurance policy. This insurance
policy is used to cover the final expenses of your
end-of-life plan preferences, services, and merchandise.
However, Final Expense insurance is typically used
because it covers a "fixed amount" of the costs
associated with your funeral, as well as other possible
expenses related to the settlement of your estate.
With a Final Expense Plan, you can select the amount of
insurance, regardless of the price of your end-of-life
needs. However, you must keep in mind that this type of
Insurance Policy does not guarantee the price of the
funeral costs (as Pre-Need Insurance does), but rather a
fixed amount of proceeds.
Another concern about using a Final Expense Plan is that
while you are alive, you always have the flexibility to
choose your beneficiary to be the Funeral Home,
Cemetery, or your heirs... or even a combination.
So in summary, we have only scratched the surface. When
pre-arranging your final plans and wishes, there are
many variables to consider. And although it may require
some work, time and effort on your part, as the saying
goes, nothing good comes easy. Therefore, if you want to
leave your loved ones a gift that will last forever, my
suggestion is to start today by creating your funeral
preplan.
Christopher P. Hill, Founder - FuneralResources.com |
