Some people say that to stitch up a prepaid funeral plan was the best things they ever did. No more worries or having to think about that part of their ending of days.  But it’s not as clear cut as that.  Funerals are for the living to commemorate the dead, and it’s the living that need to get prepped for the event as much as those doing the dying.  The dictionary meaning of prepped is to get ready.   

There is no need to hand over thousands of dollars to a business that has little interest in our affairs other than making a profit – in spite of the marketing rhetoric saying it’s all about us.  If it was all about us, they’d be advising us along the same lines as consumer advocates like Choice and the CPSA.  Pre-paid wouldn’t get a look in.

Here are three need to knows from Choice …

• • Funeral plan products – such as insurance, bonds and prepaid funerals – have sprung up in response to the anxiety people feel around paying for funerals;
  • Businesses say they offer peace of mind, but family members of people who sign up to such products tell us a different story;
  • Regulators and the banking royal commission have investigated funeral-plan providers amid claims of unethical practices.

In the story: Should you get a prepaid funeral? (February 2020) Choice says:

The funeral industry, as revealed in Part 2 of our funerals investigation, charges mourners inflated prices for its goods and services. In doing so, it creates demand for yet another funeral product to drive profits: advance payment plans. 

The choice, according to businesses, is between paying thousands of dollars before you die or saddling your loved ones with the burden.

It’s simply not true.  There are many families who have not gone down the prepaid path without any negative consequences for them or their bank balances.  Rather than people getting roped into the prepaid plans business, people put in place plans for when the need arose. 

Only one or two generations ago, these plans were well known in the community and ‘administered’ by people – usually women known as death midwives – who took it upon themselves to take care of business when a family member died.  No dramas, no fuss, get on with life, since death is what happens and life goes on. Nature did what nature does and we do what needs to be done – go with the flow – such is the ebb and flow of life. How complicated we’ve made the whole thing. 

Building a funeral sales funnel is the aim of the game.  Don’t fall into this trap.

For more click on the links and read the story.

• Profiting from people’s fears
• When funeral plans go wrong
• Why prepay?
• Unexpected extras
• When you don’t get what you signed up for
• Big bucks in prepaid funerals
• Funeral bonds: Lock in a funeral, lock out a family

We need more people to join those turning away from prevailing practices that promote spending as the best way to show respect for the dead.  We need to grow our knowledge and understanding of the funeral process – death and funeral literacy it’s called. We need to become voices for choices that don’t require prepaid, because pre-planned has all the bases covered for a respectful, dignified end of life commemoration that has little to do with the ticket price – to put it in stark business lingo.  A heap of add on trappings that for the most part are superfluous to the main event  …. that of honouring the life of the one absent, no longer physically in our presence, but forever in our memories.