Since the onset of Covid, the death care industry has experienced an uptick in preneed sales. As witnessed recently on the Bankrate website, the financial planning industry has taken notice. Bankrate is a website that provides comparisons of various financial products, and recently posted an article titled “The pros and cons of funeral trusts
Preplanning
New York Times: Can I Pre-Pay without working with a funeral home?
By Bill Stalter on
The New York Times article on funeral planning blurs the line between pre-paying and pre-funding. The savings accounts discussed by the article are one method of pre-funding funeral costs. But the POD savings account is far less secure than final expense trusts or final expense insurance policies. The concern many consumers have is that the…
New York Times: What if I Move or Die Away from Home?
By Bill Stalter on
This section of the New York Time’s funeral planning article attempts to address two separate issues. The issue of what happens when the consumer moves away is one of portability and whether the preneed contract can be transferred to a new funeral home. As we discussed in our first post on the Times article, certain…
NY Times: But Mom said everything was taken care of
By Bill Stalter on
We’re back to that recent New York Times article about funeral planning. The reporter offers spot on advice about the ‘gaps’ of preneed arrangements. A surviving parent will frequently advise adult children that they need not worry about his (or her) funeral because they have purchased a preneed contract. As the article suggests, adult children…
Estate Planning and Funeral Arrangements: A Will will be too Late
By Bill Stalter on
Funeral and burial preplanning should be a part of every estate plan, but some web pages promoting estate planning can be misleading or impractical. The estate planning page sponsored by Lawyers.com suggests that funeral arrangement preferences can be incorporated into a will or health care power of attorney to alleviate the financial and emotional burdens…
NPR’s Stories on the Funeral Industry: On Line Shopping
By Bill Stalter on
NPR’s second story on the funeral industry suggests that preplanning a funeral will typically require visits to multiple funeral homes.
NPR led their story with a consumer attorney sharing his frustrations with getting price information from funeral homes near his father. To the attorney’s surprise, many of the funeral homes did not include general price…
NPR’s Stories on the Funeral Industry: Crossing the Street can save Thousands
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Consumer Advocates, Preplanning
The take away from the recent NPR stories on the funeral industry is that consumers should preplan their funerals to control costs, and if the objective is to compare funeral homes and their prices then plan to visit each prospective funeral home.
The first story reports on a widow who spent more than $7,000 on…
Pastoral Undertaking: A Case for Prearranging Funerals
By Bill Stalter on
Posted in Churches/Ritual, Preplanning
The Calvin Institute of Christian Worship website is a good source for articles on funeral ministry, and the Conversation Project reminded us of Reverend Marc Nelesen’s post about his conversation with a congregate who had prepared for her funeral. Rev. Nelesen describes how the congregate went to great lengths to plan her funeral, and to…
Surprise Fees? Not if You Read the Contract
By Bill Stalter on
A local Kansas City television station recently ran a story about a consumer’s complaint that his preneed contract did not cover “surprise fees”. The consumer had purchased the preneed contract from a Kansas City funeral home/cemetery combo where he had also purchased a grave space. One fact regarding the preneed contract that jumped out…
The Right of Sepulcher: One Hurdle to the Final Resting Place
By Bill Stalter on
A Kansas City Star article reported on the role of the Missing in Action Project in getting Major Rombauer to his final resting place. Much of the work of the MIA Project goes unreported, but this story was found noteworthy because Major Rombauer’s cremains had been sitting on a shelf at the crematory for 102…