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The Benefits of a Pre-paid Funeral
Planning a funeral can be as smooth as silk with every family member in perfect harmony as they farewell their loved-one. Or it can be chaotic and messy, with every individual having different ideas about how the funeral should be organised. Therefore more and more people are considering prepaid funeral plans as part of their end-of-life planning and getting exactly what they want.
What is a Pre-paid Funeral Plan?
A pre-paid funeral plan is more of a strategy than a product. It means paying a funeral home in advance for an anticipated funeral sometime in the future. It also involves taking the steps to layout everything connected to your funeral including the costs, well ahead of time.
Avoid Inflation & Rising Cost of Death
You don’t want your loved ones to be financially burdened simply because you’re no longer around. Pre-paying for your funeral ensures that you have the service you planned without leaving a mountain of debt after the funeral is over.
Many of you reading this will still have plenty of life in you. But in 2022, the average funeral in Australia will cost roughly $8,000 (source). And if you think funeral costs are high now, consider what they will be in 10, 15, or 20 years. We all know what happened with lettuces; imagine how much a casket will cost if the timber crisis continues, plus there’s inflation.
Planning ahead means those you leave behind can spend the days after your death reminiscing about the good times, celebrating your life and taking time to grieve, without the heavy burden of wondering how they are going to pay for your funeral.
Peace of Mind
Making decisions when during grief and pressed by time doesn’t usually make for a satisfactory outcome. If you’re going to leave the funeral planning to the living after your death, you may not get the funeral you envisaged, and a lot of what makes a pre-planned funeral appealing is the peace of mind that comes with going out the way that you intended.
What’s involved in pre-planning a funeral?
Pre-planning a funeral entails visiting with one of Alex Gow’s skilled funeral directors and documenting all of your unique funeral desires. Some items to think about when planning a funeral are as follows:
- location of the funeral service
- your choice of cemetery or crematorium
- particular religious or cultural customs to be followed
- your preferred type and style of coffin or casket
- the involvement of a specific organisation or club in your funeral service
- personal touches you would like to add such as stories and achievements, the music you like, your favourite flowers, or a special poem or Biblical reading.
If it is more comfortable, one of our pre-planning experts can visit you at home.
Can my plan be changed?
The distinctive flexibility of a pre-planned funeral is that it provides you with a wide range of options to personalise your plan to your specific needs. It also allows you to change any funeral service specifics at any moment in the future.
The reality that we are all human and can change our mind is always considered. This is why pre-paid funeral arrangements do not impose fines, which means you won’t lose your entire investment if your funeral is not carried out by Alex Gow Funerals for whatever reason.
Similarly, there are no penalties imposed if you should move interstate or to an area where Alex Gow Funerals cannot carry out your Pre-Paid Plan funeral.
How do you pre-pay for your funeral?
Your payment can be lodged one of two ways … either in a funeral bond or in a funeral benefit trust fund. If placed in a Funeral Bond, it will be secured by a capital-guaranteed financial institution. Your payments can be paid in a lump sum, at the time of pre-arranging, or electronically deducted from your bank account in monthly instalments. It is important to note that once money is invested in a funeral bond it cannot be withdrawn until death occurs.
As with a funeral bond, money invested in a funeral benefit trust fund is also capital guaranteed, but payment instalments and times can be varied to suit your needs.
Helpful reading on pre-paying your funeral?
Well, we can’t answer for you definitively.
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