The Financial Benefits of Preplanning Your Funeral

Credit: Getty

It's never easy to think ahead, especially when it comes time to envision your own death. Yet try as we might, there's no avoiding it — one day we'll be here, and the next day we won't. We leave behind us a legacy in the form of friends and family members, and it's these folks who are then tasked with laying us to rest.

To make things easier for the loved ones we leave behind, it's a good idea to plan your funeral in advance. Detailed planning can lessen confusion about how you want your memorial service to look, as your family will have guidance in what you wanted. Importantly, preplanning can help make the costs of your funeral more bearable. Here are some financial benefits to preplanning your funeral.

Funerals can be expensive, with final costs running easily into the tens of thousands of dollars in some situations. Many families find themselves scrambling to find the resources to pay for funerals if a loved one dies suddenly, so taking the time to arrange your finances in advance as part of your funeral preplanning activities can offer serious benefits when it comes time to find ways to finance your funeral.

Advance financial planning can take many forms. You can set aside some savings that are specifically earmarked for your funeral costs. You can also take out final expense insurance, which is a type of life insurance policy that is designed to provide a payout on your death to cover the funeral expenses incurred by your family. Additionally, you can prepare a detailed will that provides information about your financial assets and directions for using a portion of those assets for your funeral expenses.

Click here to read more about why you need to plan ahead for funeral expenses. 

Another way that funeral preplanning can control the costs associated with your funeral is by contracting with a funeral home to handle all the necessary details while you're still alive and healthy. This is called a pre-need contract, which ensures that, upon your passing, the funeral home you've contracted with has all the details for your funeral arrangements ready to go at a pre-arranged price.

This is beneficial because of two things. First, the cost of funeral services tends to increase every year, due to inflation. Signing a pre-need contract now will often set prices at the time of signing, so your family won't have to pay more later. Additionally, many funeral homes encourage or even require you to pay for a pre-need contract up front, which ensures that your family won't have to worry about finding the resources to finance your funeral because it's already been paid for.

One of the biggest costs associated with any funeral is the final disposition of the body. A traditional funeral, complete with a casket burial, can run several thousand dollars depending on the type of casket used as well as the cost of a burial plot, a concrete vault and a headstone. However, if you're concerned about the cost of such a burial, you can specify by preplanning your final disposition differently.

An example of this is to make it known you would like to be cremated in your funeral preplanning documents. Cremation is considerably less expensive than a traditional casket burial, especially if you opt for a simple urn for your cremains and instructions to be spread or scattered. Other options that are less expensive include deciding beforehand to donate your body to science, which has the added benefit of helping further medical research that could save lives in the future.

Click here to read more about how to plan your own funeral. 

Preplanning your funeral plays an essential role in ensuring your family will be able to afford the type of funeral you want to have and that they have detailed instructions as to what your last wishes are. This helps them honor your wishes without the worry of financial limitations. Additionally, this provides you with peace of mind when you engage in funeral preplanning for yourself, as you can rest assured that, your family will have both the instruction and the resources to lay you to rest without worry.

It's this last point that is perhaps the most important one. Yes, preplanning your funeral means you won't have to burden your family with the costs of your final disposition, but the relief of knowing that is often the most comforting and beneficial aspect of preplanning. Communicating this to your family can ease anxiety about the financial costs associated with your death, so it's important to have conversations with your family about all the different aspects of your own funeral preplanning. The more details they know, the easier they can breathe when it comes time to say goodbye.

There are several different ways you can preplan your own funeral. You can decide to control costs by choosing a more modest method of final disposition, setting aside funds to cover those costs while you're still alive or signing a pre-need contract with a funeral home to ensure your family doesn't have to worry about inflation driving up the costs of your funeral service. This, in combination with communicating your desires to your family so that there's a detailed record of what you would like to happen during your funeral and burial, makes what will always be a difficult time just that much easier.

If the financial costs of your own funeral are weighing on your mind, you don't have to weather this storm on your own. Reach out for expert help by speaking to a funeral director today and discover even more options open to you for preplanning your own funeral.

Want more information about preplanning your burial or the burial of a loved one? Check out these articles from MemorialPlanning.com: 

• Cremation vs. Burial: Advantages, Benefits of Each Option 
• Planning Your Own Funeral: How to Make Arrangements For Yourself 
• The Benefits of Cremation Pre-planning 

By MemorialPlanning.com

MemorialPlanning.com By StoneMor Inc.

Honoring your family is our life's work. As a family-first network of cemeteries and funeral homes, we aim to be an industry leader in celebrating and honoring a person's life in a way they want that story to be told. MemorialPlanning.com, an on-line resource provided by StoneMor Inc., has everything you need to plan end-of-life services at both a time of at-need as well as in advance to secure the comfort of peace of mind.